/r/prodigyonline: not a BBS, but close reddit / bbs ---------------------------------------------------------------------- cadillaceldorado · 2014-11-02 14:36 Did anyone here use PRODIGY, the online service from the late '80s, early '90s? I created a subreddit for people who want to connect up with other PRODIGY users at [/r/prodigyonline] (http://www.reddit.com/r/prodigyonline). I was also a heavy BBS user, but it was PRODIGY that introduced me to the concept. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ScootyPuff-Sr · 2014-11-02 19:31 By the time I got a modem, Prodigy had either just discontinued support for the Apple II, or was just about to do so, and I was rocking an Apple //c at the time so that was sort of a dealbreaker. A+/InCider magazine had recently done a review of the big online services and said that if you were on an Apple II, GEnie was the place to hang your hat. So I did. Prodigy needed custom proprietary software, but I was on GEnie for over a year with no terminal software at all. I can't remember how, now, but there were commands that would turn the //c into a dumb terminal. Tha said, getting a copy of ProTerm 3.0 for Christmas was the best thing ever. Hooray for autodial and scrollback buffers!! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- crappyboy · 2014-11-02 22:18 Cool, I subscribed. I had Prodigy at some point in addition to my time with DOS AOL and concentric.net. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- cadillaceldorado · 2014-11-02 23:10 Coolness. I didn't do any other online services because of cost, but once I discovered BBSes, I never looked back. But I still remember playing things like MadMaze and exploring the forums with fondness. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- anras · 2014-11-02 23:47 I used it a bit but I think I just used the trial minutes then canceled. (Or if that's not how it worked, maybe I only subscribed for a month or so. Don't remember exactly.) I remember playing a RPG-ish game called Mad Maze that was pretty cool. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- crappyboy · 2014-11-03 00:29 I think I went to AOL after we had Prodigy. I wish I still had one of the diskettes around. We also got a local free-net in my city, so I had a Unix shell account with that an d really got to explore. Of course, the bbs community in my city was very active also and I am still friends with some of them to this day. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- cadillaceldorado · 2014-11-03 14:35 Yeah, I was off and on, myself. But I loved MadMaze, and also the Mad Libs game! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- samalex01 · 2014-11-06 15:34 I used I believe Prodigy 1.0 for MS-DOS on my 8088 system, amber Hercules monitor, running a 2400 baud modem around 1990 or 1991. They used to not require a credit card, so given I was like 14 at the time this was perfect. At one point I did like a 30 minute video of me using the system, but I haven't seen that video in probably 15 years. I wish I had it now, the system was amazing! I was a BBS fanatic by this point, but this was my first exposure to online shopping, chat, online dictionary and encyclopedia, live news, weather, etc. I used the free accounts for a year or so until they started requiring a credit card. Met lots of great people on there, but given my account name changed each time my freebie account expired I didn't retain any long term contacts. Those were simpler days for sure ... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ILikeBumblebees · 2014-11-26 20:18 > Prodigy had either just discontinued support for the Apple II, or was just about to do so I don't think Prodigy ever supported the Apple II. IIRC, there was a Mac client too, but the whole service was very DOS-centric. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ILikeBumblebees · 2014-11-26 20:26 There's actually a [project](http://www.vintagecomputing.com/index.php/archives/1063) going on to try to resurrect Prodigy, and they're currently looking for copies of the STAGE.DAT and CACHE.DAT files from people's old installs of the Prodigy client to help reverse engineer it. If you've got any old backups from that era lying around, you might be able to help them out.