[HN Gopher] Ohio gives historical status to building that once h...
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       Ohio gives historical status to building that once housed
       CompuServe
        
       Author : ohjeez
       Score  : 72 points
       Date   : 2023-12-22 17:28 UTC (5 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (news.wosu.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (news.wosu.org)
        
       | drewcoo wrote:
       | Is this in response to the demolition of the old AOL HQ?
       | 
       | https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/northern-virginia/d...
        
       | fsckboy wrote:
       | given the nature and significance of the online world, it would
       | have been more appropriate to retire the phone number. what
       | percentage of people who used CompuServe had a clue where it was?
        
         | p1mrx wrote:
         | What does "retire the phone number" mean?
        
           | ceejayoz wrote:
           | Prevent its reuse. Like when a sports team retires a player
           | number or United never having a Flight 93 again.
        
             | p1mrx wrote:
             | But _what_ phone number?
        
               | wyldfire wrote:
               | Maybe their directory-published "telephone number" -
               | presumably they only had one of those.
        
               | ceejayoz wrote:
               | It was a long, long time ago, but I seem to recall a
               | 1-800 if you were on the road somewhere.
        
         | ChrisArchitect wrote:
         | yeah, was just thinking how random this story is, as in all the
         | things when I think about CompuServe, where it was _physically_
         | located is not something that comes to mind or something that
         | even matters haha.
         | 
         | But whatever, fun bit of trivia for....Upper Arlington.
        
         | markbnj wrote:
         | Eh, I grant your point but it's probably higher than you might
         | think. I was an early and devoted (and thus usually broke)
         | Compuserve user, and visited the now-preserved building back in
         | the mid-90s. The CIS user base skewed, I would say, heavily
         | nerd, and heavily enthusiast, and it wouldn't surprise me to
         | learn somehow that a large percentage of the people who used
         | the service, at least in the early days, knew where it was
         | headquartered. Certainly would not have been true after the AOL
         | acquisition.
        
       | Racing0461 wrote:
       | This is just the cynic in me but they are most likely doing this
       | for tax reasons or to not have to pay for demolition.
        
         | jasongill wrote:
         | No they aren't; the building has been owned for nearly 20 years
         | by a church and it's still got an active datacenter in it plus
         | office space, etc. One of my companies had office space there
         | and after we sold the business, the buyer expanded our
         | footprint in the building which exists to this day as far as I
         | have heard.
        
         | testplzignore wrote:
         | Ohio's historic marker program doesn't give any protected
         | status to the property they are located on afaik. It's just a
         | touristy thing.
        
         | JoshuaRogers wrote:
         | I wouldn't expect so. My (non-professional) understanding was
         | that having historical status raised the amount of upkeep and
         | approval required for modifications.
        
         | renewiltord wrote:
         | I think it would be hard to tell in an Internet battle of
         | uninformed takes whether "tax write off" beats "money
         | laundering". Everything on the Internet gets this treatment.
         | It's less cynicism and more just LLM-action.
        
       | 6stringmerc wrote:
       | Of course the founder of CompuServe was the expert on GIF
       | pronunciation.
       | 
       | Why do you think dial-up was useful in the early 1990s? GIF
       | trading was the jam. I didn't much care for my experience at
       | attempted skinhead recruitment via chatting, but hey, some things
       | don't really change when it comes to impressionable young people
       | and computers.
       | 
       | Ohio: Come see our misnamed Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame, the
       | abandoned CompuServe HQ, and wait for the Great Lakes to pull
       | back on their own and give Ohio some extra room.
        
       | jrmg wrote:
       | _This may be the first historical marker about the internet_
       | 
       | Surely that's not the case?
        
       | threeio wrote:
       | You can read the plaque in this link
       | 
       | https://www.10tv.com/article/news/local/ohio-historical-mark...
        
       | whalesalad wrote:
       | not to be confused with the compuware building in the heart of
       | downtown detroit -
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Campus_Martius
        
       | Exoristos wrote:
       | I only ever used Compuserve at work, for community tech support
       | for certain products. Was it really the hive of scum and villainy
       | it has a reputation for?
        
       | mannyv wrote:
       | 70365,1426!
        
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       (page generated 2023-12-22 23:00 UTC)