Verizon Buying AOL??

[W3WN]

I don't get it. I must be missing something, but I just don't get it.

"Verizon is buying AOL for about $4.4 Billion, or $50 a share, the companies announced Tuesday."
http://money.cnn.com/2015/05/12/investing/verizon-buys-aol/
http://www.nbcnew.com/tech/internet/why-verizo-bought-aol-what-theyll-get-rid-n357636
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/13/business/dealbook/verizon-to-buy-aol-for-4-4-billion.html?_r=0

Did they want the rights to the phrase "You've Got Mail" that badly?

Hmmm. OTOH, I wonder if these are still any good, now?
13911

[K7SGJ]

I don't get it. I must be missing something, but I just don't get it.

"Verizon is buying AOL for about $4.4 Billion, or $50 a share, the companies announced Tuesday."
http://money.cnn.com/2015/05/12/investing/verizon-buys-aol/
http://www.nbcnew.com/tech/internet/why-verizo-bought-aol-what-theyll-get-rid-n357636
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/13/business/dealbook/verizon-to-buy-aol-for-4-4-billion.html?_r=0

Did they want the rights to the phrase "You've Got Mail" that badly?

Hmmm. OTOH, I wonder if these are still any good, now?
13911

Yes, they are still good.......got a shotgun?

[n2ize]

(a wavy equal sign) 2.1 million Americans still subscribe to AOL dial-up... Well that is what this article say's and I have heard similar figures from other sources.

http://www.techtimes.com/articles/52087/20150512/believe-it-or-not-2-1-million-americans-still-subscribe-to-aol-dial-up-internet.htm

[KK4AMI]

I met my wife on AOL messenger 15 years ago. Haven't used AOL since.

[K7SGJ]

I met my wife on AOL messenger 15 years ago. Haven't used AOL since.


Just for giggles, you ought to try it again and see what you get this time.

[KG4NEL]

AOL = HuffPo, TechCrunch, Engadget, et al.

This wasn't for the AOL of old...

[n2ize]

Some rural areas still don't have broadband. People living in such areas still use dialup. I have a friend who lives in a very rural part of upstate New York. At his home he has no internet service. There is no broadband in his local area. Satellite is out as he's on the wrong side of the mountain. Dialup is his only option and he doesn't use dialup because the phone system in his area is very antiquated, he's a very long distance from the nearest CO thus he get's horrifically slow connections on dialup. No cell phone service in his area either. Just plain old fashioned (circa 1930's) POTS telephone service over very old copper. It is a great area for radio though. Particularly for receiving s there is no QRM on the receiver.

[n2ize]

I met my wife on AOL messenger 15 years ago. Haven't used AOL since.

I started off with AOL then a few months later I went to a small private ISP for my dialup. Since I was on Linux I used a daemon called "diald" which would automatically dial out and connect on demand if an appp required Internet access... Later on the added "on demand dialing" to the pppd daemon so I no longer needed diald. Eventually I was running my entire home network over one dialup connection, the main server ran the pppd daemon so anytime any device connected to the network required Internet access the main server would automatically dial out and connect. Worked great but sloooooowwww as heck. Then one morning Verizon sent the FiOS installer to my house and by noon dialup was history.

[kb2vxa]

You mean you didn't use Verizon DSL somewhere between dial up and FiOS? I went with Comcast cable when I found a way to get it for $10/mo, it's not FiOS but you can't beat the price.

Those AOL floppies that came in the mail, sometimes several in a week were ha hoot. I formatted them, tossed them in a box and never had to buy floppies. I never used it, they don't call it Assholes On Line for nothing. I still have an animated .gif around here someplace, shoot the AOL Messenger. You can put one of those CDs in the microwave to watch the fireworks. Put half a glass of water in to absorb excess microwave radiation so you don't burn out the magnetron and NO MORE THAN 10 SECONDS, if the plastic melts you'll have the most horrible STINK for a month or so. Be absolutely sure of this, if the wifoid puts something in and it stinks like burning acrylic she'll KILL you!

[wa6mhz]

I am astonished AOL is still in business. Last time I got a FREE AOL DISK was when I was running WINDOWS 95!!!

[NM5TF]

I hear this guy is interested in the deal....

http://moron.com/florida-man-attempts-to-cash-368-billion-check/

[kb2vxa]

Verizon buying AOL, a homeless man buying Floriduh. They rather go together, ay?

[n2ize]

[QUOTE=kb2vxa;626074]You mean you didn't use Verizon DSL somewhere between dial up and FiOS? I went with Comcast cable when I found a way to get it for $10/mo, it's not FiOS but you can't beat the price.

[\QUOTE]

No, I didn't but my main point was you still have a rather small but significant number of people in the US who can't get broadband. The major carriers have yet to go that "last mile".

[suddenseer]

I don't get it. I must be missing something, but I just don't get it.

"Verizon is buying AOL for about $4.4 Billion, or $50 a share, the companies announced Tuesday."
http://money.cnn.com/2015/05/12/investing/verizon-buys-aol/
http://www.nbcnew.com/tech/internet/why-verizo-bought-aol-what-theyll-get-rid-n357636
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/13/business/dealbook/verizon-to-buy-aol-for-4-4-billion.html?_r=0

Did they want the rights to the phrase "You've Got Mail" that badly?

Hmmm. OTOH, I wonder if these are still any good, now?
13911I use them as drink coasters.

[NQ6U]

I started using AOL when it was called AppleLink and was Mac-only. Shortly after they changed the name and to AOL and started letting DOS users in, I met the woman who's now my wife there. I'll never forgive forget them for that.

[KG4NEL]

Those Apple women are weird, man.

[K7SGJ]

Rotten, to the core. I wonder what it all stems from?

[NQ6U]

Apple women are a seedy lot, but my now-wife was a DOS user at the time.

[K7SGJ]

And of course, there is the crab element.

[NQ6U]

They do have a certain appeel, none the less.

[K7SGJ]

I don't know....have ya seen Granny Smith lately?

[NQ6U]

I don't know....have ya seen Granny Smith lately?

http://www.johngouldener.com/wp-content/uploads/granny_smith.jpg

[K7SGJ]

She is a bit......tart looking.

[n2ize]

I started using AOL when it was called AppleLink and was Mac-only. Shortly after they changed the name and to AOL and started letting DOS users in, I met the woman who's now my wife there. I'll never forgive forget them for that.

Remember "CompUServe" ?? My earliest experiences with being online was via BBS networks (protociols xmodem, zmodem, etc.) You remember, you'd dial in to the BBS. I used to dial in to a free local BBS to download add-on's for an early version of flight simulator. Then some BBS's started offering email and Internet access. My first email address was a ".gov" email that I would access through my employers BBS. Then in a matter of a couple years BBS's all but disappeared and everyone was getting direct Internet access. In the pre-world wide web days me and a friend operated a "Gopher" server. Dem's wuz da good ole days. :)

[K0RGR]

I was confusing Compuserve with TimeShare. My brother was married to the daughter of a TimeShare executive. The marriage didn't last, unfortunately.

I was aware of the components of the Internet long before I had access to it. But I was one of the first in my office, because I supported some of our UNIX stuff, and I ended up being the guru for another class of computer system for a long time. The first thing we had was based on USENET, I think. We had a subscription based search tool that would search USENET for topics we selected, and sometimes spit out reams of documents.

That was replaced by GOPHER around 1992/3, but very shortly after, HTML took over. GOPHER was so named because it was developed at the U. of Minnesota.

My first exposure to Internet-like things was in 1970 - long before the Internet was dreamed of. An early form of Telnet protocol was in use for remote computer terminals. That year, we did all of our Sweepstakes contest logging from the College club station on a computer at Stanford via Telnet. Worked very well, even had great dupe checking , but in the middle of the night, they took the system down for maintenance, and our logs got trashed. Of course, this was before CRT's were common, we were using a portable printing terminal, and lots of thermal paper!

[K7SGJ]

Remember "CompUServe" ?? My earliest experiences with being online was via BBS networks (protociols xmodem, zmodem, etc.) You remember, you'd dial in to the BBS. I used to dial in to a free local BBS to download add-on's for an early version of flight simulator. Then some BBS's started offering email and Internet access. My first email address was a ".gov" email that I would access through my employers BBS. Then in a matter of a couple years BBS's all but disappeared and everyone was getting direct Internet access. In the pre-world wide web days me and a friend operated a "Gopher" server. Dem's wuz da good ole days. :)

Are you still using FS? If so, what version?

[n2ize]

Are you still using FS? If so, what version?

No. these day's I am using FlightGear under Linux.

[n2ize]

I was confusing Compuserve with TimeShare. My brother was married to the daughter of a TimeShare executive. The marriage didn't last, unfortunately.

I was aware of the components of the Internet long before I had access to it. But I was one of the first in my office, because I supported some of our UNIX stuff, and I ended up being the guru for another class of computer system for a long time. The first thing we had was based on USENET, I think. We had a subscription based search tool that would search USENET for topics we selected, and sometimes spit out reams of documents.

That was replaced by GOPHER around 1992/3, but very shortly after, HTML took over. GOPHER was so named because it was developed at the U. of Minnesota.

My first exposure to Internet-like things was in 1970 - long before the Internet was dreamed of. An early form of Telnet protocol was in use for remote computer terminals. That year, we did all of our Sweepstakes contest logging from the College club station on a computer at Stanford via Telnet. Worked very well, even had great dupe checking , but in the middle of the night, they took the system down for maintenance, and our logs got trashed. Of course, this was before CRT's were common, we were using a portable printing terminal, and lots of thermal paper!

Yep, I had similar experiences but probably somewhat later than you. My first interaction with a computer was running FORTRAN programs types on punch cards and submitted for processing on an IBM Mainframe. Afterwards I was immersed in the PDP / DEC 20 / VAXen world.