America Online (AOL)
In 1992 America Online was released for Windows 3.1 (DOS version was
released a year prior). Myself and millions of other people all over
the world received a AOL CD in the mail, I was blown away. Prodigy was
great but AOL had more, not only did they have their own network (much
like Prodigy) but it got your on the REAL Internet. Meaning once online
you could use Internet Explorer and browse the new World Wide Web, play
Quake, chat using irc. The possibilities literally were endless. AOL's
success was enormus, at one point having 30 million subscribers world
wide. At first they actually charged access by the hour, I remember
getting an angry phone call from my Dad after I ran up a $150 AOL bill.
The chat rooms were widely popular, I remember reading about how people
formed real relationships and marriages through AOL chat rooms. I even
remember a woman wanting to sue AOL because she was disconnected from
a chat room while talking to a guy she was in love with, crazy!
AOHELL
With the rise of AOL along came the rise of AOHELL. AOHELL was released
in 1994 by a hacker that calls himself 'DaChronic'. Something happened
between AOL and DaChronic, evadently AOL would close his 'Hacker' chat
rooms but not close offensive sexual chat rooms. DaChronic was so upset
that he made this program to basically cause problems for AOL.
AOHELL Features:
- Fake account creator
Would auto fill out their account creator with fake information (name, address, credit card info, etc). Basically users could use this fake account for a limited amount of time before AOL caught on and shut it off. - AOL for Free
When AOL charged hourly fees they had some portions of AOL that actually did not cost any money, this would include areas where you would manage your account, help centers, etc. AOHELL would trick the software into letting you into these areas and then let you into chat rooms. Unforatuntely this doesn't result in you not being billed as I found out first hand :( - IM / Email Bombs
Basically flooding an inbox or users IM box with junk until their 28.8bps connection would explode.
Anyway, you can imagine the havoc caused by this program and the copycats that soon followed. Anyone else remember this stuff? Coming up next a ISP that I left out, Imagination. This was a neat one that today there is nothing close.
screaching
modem noises. Thinking back Prodigy was a lot like AOL today, of course
there was no such thing as 'web pages', but the software allowed you to
access different parts of the Prodigy network, including forums (where
I traded comic books online) and even games. I remember a very basic
game where you were in some sort of a labrinyth and you had to try and
get out. Each command would present a choice and the wrong choice would
of course mean death. Prodigy also had weather, news, other boring
features a kid would not be interested in. Well Prodigy was great no
doubt about that, but times were changing it was almost 1994 and I was
almost 14 and then came something no one was ready for, the World Wide
Web. 
