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GEnie Login, 1993
GEnie (General Electric Network for Information Exchange) was an online service created by a General Electric business, GEIS (now GXS), that ran from 1985 through the end of 1999. In 1994, GEnie claimed around 350,000 users. Peak simultaneous usage was around 10,000 users. It was one of the pioneering services in the field, though eventually replaced by the World Wide Web and graphics-based services, most notably AOL. Early history GEnie was founded by Bill Louden on October 1, 1985 and was launched as an ASCII text-based service by GE's Information Services division in October 1985, and received attention as the first serious commercial competition to CompuServe. Louden was originally CompuServe's product manager for Computing, Community (forums), Games, eCommerce, and email product lines. Louden purchased DECWAR source code and had '' MegaWars'' developed, one of the earliest multi-player online games (or MMOG), in 1985. The service was run by General Electric Informat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
General Electric
General Electric Company (GE) was an American Multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in 1892, incorporated in the New York (state), state of New York and headquartered in Boston. Over the years, the company had multiple divisions, including GE Aerospace, aerospace, GE Power, energy, GE HealthCare, healthcare, lighting, locomotives, appliances, and GE Capital, finance. In 2020, GE ranked among the Fortune 500, ''Fortune'' 500 as the 33rd largest firm in the United States by gross revenue. In 2023, the company was ranked 64th in the Forbes Global 2000, ''Forbes'' Global 2000. In 2011, GE ranked among the Fortune 20 as the 14th most profitable company, but later very severely underperformed the market (by about 75%) as its profitability collapsed. Two employees of GE—Irving Langmuir (1932) and Ivar Giaever (1973)—have been awarded the Nobel Prize. From 1986 until 2013, GE was the owner of the NBC television network through its ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Merit Network
Merit Network, Inc., is a nonprofit member-governed organization providing high-performance computer networking and related services to educational, government, health care, and Non-profit organization, nonprofit organizations, primarily in Michigan. Created in 1966, Merit operates the longest running regional computer network in the United States. Organization Created in 1966 as the Michigan Educational Research Information Triad by Michigan State University (MSU), the University of Michigan (U-M), and Wayne State University (WSU),"Merit–Who, What, and Why, Part One: The Early Years, 1964-1983" Eric M. Aupperle, Merit Network, Inc., in ''Library Hi Tech'', vol. 16, No. 1 (1998) Merit was created to investigate resource sharing by connecting the mai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
AUSI
Mythic Entertainment (formerly BioWare Mythic, EA Mythic, Inc., and Interworld Productions) was an American video game developer based in Fairfax, Virginia that was most widely recognized for developing the 2001 massively multiplayer online role-playing game '' Dark Age of Camelot''. Mythic was a prolific creator of multiplayer online games following its establishment in the mid-1990s. On May 29, 2014, Electronic Arts announced it would be "closing the EA Mythic location in Fairfax", effectively winding down all the studio's operations. Despite the studio's closure, ''Dark Age of Camelot'' will continue to be supported by ex-Mythic staff under a new studio, Broadsword, which is also responsible for maintaining Ultima Online. As of 2025, the name remains a registered trademark of EA. History Mythic originally evolved from two early Washington, DC (USA) area online game development companies. The first was Adventures Unlimited Software Inc. (AUSI), was founded in 1984 By Mark Jaco ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
GemStone II
''GemStone IV'' is a multiplayer text-based online role-playing video game (often known as a MUD) produced by Simutronics. Players control characters in a high fantasy game world named "Elanthia". The first playable version of the game was known as ''GemStone ] ' and was launched in April 1988 on GEnie. It was one of the first MMORPGs and is one of the longest running Internet">online games still active. Access to the game is subscription-based (monthly fee) through its website, with three additional subscriptions levels available, "Premium", "Platinum" and "Shattered", in addition to a free-to-play model introduced in early March 2015. Technical information ''GemStone IV'' is a text-based game built on Simutronics' proprietary engine, the IFE (Interactive Fiction Engine). This engine is capable of changing nearly any aspect of the game on the fly which allows updates without the necessity for downtime. Due to the use of the IFE, ''GemStone'' is rarely taken offline, giving a 24 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Simutronics
Simutronics is an American online games company whose products include '' GemStone IV'' and ''DragonRealms''. It was founded in 1987 by David Whatley, with husband and wife Tom & Susan Zelinski. The company is located in St. Louis, Missouri. It became part of the Stillfront Group in 2016. The company's flagship product is the text based game, ''GemStone IV'', which went live in November 2003, with predecessor games running back in 1988. ''GemStone'' was originally accessed through General Electric's internet service provider GEnie, later becoming accessible through AOL, Prodigy, and CompuServe before Simutronics finally moved all their games to their own domain in 1997. Simutronics products Multiplayer online games * '' GemStone IV'', Simutronics' flagship product, a text-based multiplayer fantasy game, which has seen over one million users over the years. It is the longest-lived commercial MUD game, followed by Avalon: The Legend Lives. * ''DragonRealms'', a 1996 MUD se ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Air Warrior (video Game)
''Air Warrior'' is a discontinued multiplayer online combat flight simulation game launched by Kesmai in 1987. It was hosted on GEnie and used that service as a server for client software running on a variety of personal computers. It underwent continual improvement through its decade-long lifetime with Kesmai, appearing on new platforms and host services. Electronic Arts purchased Air Warrior in 1999, and became provider of the game, but it was discontinued in 2001. Sequels '' Air Warrior II'' and '' Air Warrior III'' were both released in 1997 and published by Interactive Magic. ''Air Warrior'' was one of the first massive online games, hosting hundreds of users during busy periods. It inspired '' WarBirds'', which in turn inspired ''Aces High'', while other members of the ''Warbirds'' team went on to produce '' World War II Online''. Today there are a number of similar games, like '' WarThunder'', most of them based on a freemium model. History Introduced in 1988 by Kes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kesmai
Kesmai was a pioneering game developer and online game publisher, founded in 1981 by Kelton Flinn and John Taylor. The company was best known for the combat flight sim '' Air Warrior'' on the GEnie online service, one of the first graphical MMOGs, launched in 1987. They also developed an ASCII-based MUD, '' Island of Kesmai'', and empire building game, '' MegaWars III'', which ran on CompuServe, and later, GEnie. The company was acquired by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. in 1994. The company continued to develop massively multiplayer games such as ''Air Warrior 2'' and ''Legends of Kesmai''. They distributed their games through AOL and eventually a new gaming service formed with three other publishers, GameStorm. AOL purchased CompuServe in 1997 and retooled its AOL Games Channel in a way that placed Kesmai unfavorably compared to its own games division, WorldPlay. Kesmai sued AOL for monopolistic practices. The suit was settled out of court with undisclosed terms. In ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Massively Multiplayer Online Game
A massively multiplayer online game (MMOG or more commonly MMO) is an online video game with a large number of players to interact in the same online game world. MMOs usually feature a huge, persistent world, persistent open world, although there are games that differ. These games can be found for most network-capable platforms, including the personal computer, video game console, or Mobile app, smartphones and other mobile devices. MMOs can enable players to cooperate and compete with each other on a large scale, and sometimes to interact meaningfully with people around the world. They include a variety of gameplay types, representing many video game genres. History The most popular type of MMOG, and the subgenre that pioneered the category, is the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), which descended from university mainframe computer Multi-user dungeon, MUD and adventure games such as ''Rogue (video game), Rogue'' and ''Dungeon (video game), Dungeon'' o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bulletin Board System
A bulletin board system (BBS), also called a computer bulletin board service (CBBS), is a computer server running list of BBS software, software that allows users to connect to the system using a terminal program. Once logged in, the user performs functions such as uploading and downloading software and data, reading news and bulletins, and exchanging messages with other users through public Internet forum, message boards and sometimes via direct synchronous conferencing, chatting. In the early 1980s, message networks such as FidoNet were developed to provide services such as M+NetMail, NetMail, which is similar to internet-based email. Many BBSes also offered BBS door, online games in which users could compete with each other. BBSes with multiple phone lines often provided chat rooms, allowing users to interact with each other. Bulletin board systems were in many ways a precursor to the modern form of the World Wide Web, social networking service, social networks, and other aspe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Citizens' Band Radio
Citizens band radio (CB radio) is a land mobile radio system, a system allowing short-distance one-to-many bidirectional voice communication among individuals, using two-way radios operating near 27 MHz (or the 11-m wavelength) in the high frequency or shortwave band. Citizens band is distinct from other personal radio service allocations such as FRS, GMRS, MURS, UHF CB and the Amateur Radio Service ( "ham" radio). In many countries, CB operation does not require a license and may be used for business or personal communications. Like many other land mobile radio services, multiple radios in a local area share a single frequency channel, but only one can transmit at a time. The radio is normally in receive mode to receive transmissions of other radios on the channel; when users want to communicate they press a " push to talk" button on their radio, which turns on their transmitter. Users on a channel must take turns transmitting. In the US and Canada, and in the EU an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
GemStone IV
''GemStone IV'' is a multiplayer text-based online role-playing video game (often known as a MUD) produced by Simutronics. Players control characters in a high fantasy game world named "Elanthia". The first playable version of the game was known as ''GemStone ] ' and was launched in April 1988 on GEnie. It was one of the first MMORPGs and is one of the longest running Internet">online games still active. Access to the game is subscription-based (monthly fee) through its website, with three additional subscriptions levels available, "Premium", "Platinum" and "Shattered", in addition to a free-to-play model introduced in early March 2015. Technical information ''GemStone IV'' is a text-based game built on Simutronics' proprietary engine, the IFE (Interactive Fiction Engine). This engine is capable of changing nearly any aspect of the game on the fly which allows updates without the necessity for downtime. Due to the use of the IFE, ''GemStone'' is rarely taken offline, giving a 24 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prodigy (ISP)
Prodigy Communications Corporation was an online service from 1984 to 2001 that offered its subscribers access to a broad range of networked services. It was one of the major internet service providers of the 1990s. The company claimed it was the first consumer online service, citing its graphical user interface and basic architecture as differentiation from CompuServe, which started in 1979 and used a command-line interface. Prodigy was described by the ''New York Times'' as "family-oriented" and one of "the Big Three information services" in 1994. By 1990, it was the second-largest online service provider with 465,000 subscribers, trailing only CompuServe's 600,000. In 1993 it was the largest. In 2001, it was acquired by SBC Communications, which in 2005 became the present iteration of AT&T. The Mexican branch of Prodigy, however, was acquired by Telmex. Early history The roots of Prodigy date to 1980 when broadcaster CBS and telecommunications firm AT&T Corporation formed a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
