Catalog of Compuserve Games, 1984
Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2025 6:15 am
Book page image
This service flourished through the 1980s and 1990s, and in what should be considered a reductive and surface description of the situation, slowly broke apart via acquisitions, shifting priorities and the dominance of the World Wide Web providing many aspects of what Compuserve had previously done exclusively.
By the time this 2000s-era chapter was over, Compuserve was more a brand and a memory. But it had still reigned in the minds of many as the beginning, the launching pad for a lot of what people came to expect the online world to provide.
It was assumed most of the history of Compuserve phone number library was gone – the hardware, software and documentation scattered to the winds.
Not so.
As explained in this blog entry that literally reads like a movie script, the Computer History Museum has acquired, sorted, and added a major amount of Compuserve’s archives to their stacks. The collection had been sitting for decades, and was soon to be disposed of, when it was offered to CHM and they accepted.
Among these items that have been recovered are documents that are being given to the Internet Archive to scan and place online – instructions on how to operate a Compuserve service.
These opportunities to recover assumed-lost materials are extremely rare, but hope springs eternal that in rooms, attics and file cabinets around the world, there possibly lurk further discoveries, and happy endings. Almost like a movie.
This service flourished through the 1980s and 1990s, and in what should be considered a reductive and surface description of the situation, slowly broke apart via acquisitions, shifting priorities and the dominance of the World Wide Web providing many aspects of what Compuserve had previously done exclusively.
By the time this 2000s-era chapter was over, Compuserve was more a brand and a memory. But it had still reigned in the minds of many as the beginning, the launching pad for a lot of what people came to expect the online world to provide.
It was assumed most of the history of Compuserve phone number library was gone – the hardware, software and documentation scattered to the winds.
Not so.
As explained in this blog entry that literally reads like a movie script, the Computer History Museum has acquired, sorted, and added a major amount of Compuserve’s archives to their stacks. The collection had been sitting for decades, and was soon to be disposed of, when it was offered to CHM and they accepted.
Among these items that have been recovered are documents that are being given to the Internet Archive to scan and place online – instructions on how to operate a Compuserve service.
These opportunities to recover assumed-lost materials are extremely rare, but hope springs eternal that in rooms, attics and file cabinets around the world, there possibly lurk further discoveries, and happy endings. Almost like a movie.