1969; 55 years ago (1969) (as Compu-Serv Network, Inc.)
Headquarters
Columbus, Ohio, U.S.
Products
online services, ISP
Parent
Yahoo! Inc.
Website
www.compuserve.com
CompuServe (CompuServe Information Service, also known by its initialism CIS or later CSi) was an American online service, the first major commercial one in the world. It opened in 1969 as a timesharing and remote access service marketed to corporations. After a successful 1979 venture selling otherwise under-utilized after-hours time to Radio Shack customers, the system was opened to the public, roughly the same time as The Source. H&R Block bought the company in 1980 and began to more aggressively advertise the service.
CompuServe dominated the industry during the 1980s and remained a major influence through the mid-1990s. At its peak during the early 1990s, CIS had an online chat system, message forums for a variety of topics, extensive software libraries for most personal computers, and a series of popular online games, including MegaWars III and Island of Kesmai. It introduced the GIF format for pictures and a system for exchanging GIF files.[1] In 1994, it was described as "the oldest of the Big Three information services (the others are Prodigy and America Online)".[2]
In 1997, 17 years after H&R Block had acquired CIS, the parent company announced its desire to sell CIS. A complex deal was devised with WorldCom acting as a broker, resulting in CIS being sold to AOL. In 2015, Verizon acquired AOL, including its CompuServe division. In 2017, after Verizon completed its acquisition of Yahoo!, CompuServe became part of Verizon's newly formed subsidiary Oath Inc. At the time, the remaining original parts of CIS were closed down, leaving it only as an internet service provider and a sub-brand of AOL. Oath was then divested as the new Yahoo! company in 2021.
^"GIF". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved May 2, 2023.
^Lewis, Peter H. (November 29, 1994). "The Compuserve Edge: Delicate Data Balance". The New York Times.
2021. "Compuserve Prepares For Buyout By Worldcom". Spokesman.com. October 8, 2011. Retrieved February 21, 2021. "About CompuServe". CompuServe. Yahoo...
CompuServe Information Manager (CIM) was CompuServe Information Service's client software, used with the company's Host Micro Interface (HMI). The program...
image format that was developed by a team at the online services provider CompuServe led by American computer scientist Steve Wilhite and released on June...
mail systems soon began to emerge. IBM, CompuServe and Xerox used in-house mail systems in the 1970s; CompuServe sold a commercial intraoffice mail product...
become the largest online service, displacing established players like CompuServe and The Source. By 1995, AOL had about three million active users. AOL...
remained a CompuServe/AOL employee into the first decade of the 21st century, working on a variety of CompuServe systems. These included CompuServe's wire protocols...
industry. Only the largest services like AOL (which later acquired CompuServe, just as CompuServe acquired The Source) were able to make the transition to the...
Laboratory, University of Cambridge. It operated from 1974 until the 1980s. CompuServe developed its own packet switching network, implemented on DEC PDP-11...
available on request to customers before being released commercially in 1981. CompuServe began offering electronic mail designed for intraoffice memos in 1978...
provider CompuServe enabled people to pay (register) for software using their CompuServe accounts. When AOL bought out CompuServe, that part of CompuServe called...
managing director for CompuServe Germany, was charged with violating German child pornography laws because of the material CompuServe's network was carrying...
that was widely available to the public was the CompuServe CB Simulator in 1980, created by CompuServe executive Alexander "Sandy" Trevor in Columbus,...
that was widely available to the public was the CompuServe CB Simulator in 1980, created by CompuServe executive Alexander "Sandy" Trevor in Columbus,...
be run as a service for British Telecom. In 1987, MUD1 was licensed by CompuServe, who pressured Richard Bartle to close down the instance of MUD1, better...
maintained by CompuServe. Cyber Promotions' persistence in sending email to CompuServe's servers after receiving notification that CompuServe no longer consented...
academic and professional computer society. SIG was later popularized on CompuServe, an early online service provider, where SIGs were a section of the service...
Witches and Stitches, which he started uploading on CompuServe in 1985. Services such as CompuServe and Usenet were used before the World Wide Web started...
Global Information
