Difference between revisions of "MS Technology Vocabulary AOL"

Revision as of 10:15, 4 October 2010

Michael Oramas

January 2009

computer 7-4

AOL

AOL began life as a short-lived venture called Control Video Corporation (or CVC), founded by Bill von Meister. Its sole product was an online service called Gameline for the Atari 2600 video game console after von Meister's idea of buying music on demand was rejected by Warner Brothers. Subscribers bought a modem from the company for $49.95 and paid a one-time $15 setup fee. Gameline permitted subscribers to temporarily download games and keep track of high scores, at a cost of $1 per game. The telephone disconnected and the downloaded game would remain in Gameline's Master Module and playable until the user turned off his console or downloaded another game.

In January, 1983, Steve Case was hired as a marketing consultant for Control Video on the recommendation of his brother, investment banker Dan Case. In May 1983, Jim Kimsey became a manufacturing consultant for Control Video, which was near bankruptcy. Kimsey was brought in by his friend from West Point, Frank Caufield, an investor in the company. Bill von Meister quietly left the company in early 1985. Control Video was reorganized as Quantum Computer Services, Inc. on May 24, 1985, with Kimsey as Chief Executive Officer and Marc Seriff as Chief Technology Officer. Out of 100 employees from Control Video, only 10 remained in the new company. Case himself rose quickly through the ranks; Kimsey promoted him to vice-president of marketing not long after becoming CEO, and later promoted him further to executive vice-president in 1987. Kimsey soon began to groom Case to ascend to the rank of CEO, which he did when Kimsey retired in 1991.

Kimsey changed the company's strategy, and in 1985 launched a dedicated online service. In May 1988, Quantum and Apple launched AppleLink Personal Edition for Apple II and Macintosh computers. In August 1988, Quantum launched PC Link, a service for IBM-compatible PCs developed in a joint venture with the Tandy Corporation. After the company parted ways with Apple in October, 1989, Quantum changed the service's name to America Online.

From the beginning, AOL included online games in its mix of products; many classic and casual games were included in the original PlayNet software system. In the early years of AOL the company introduced many additional innovative online interactive titles and games, including Graphical chat environments Habitat (1986–1988) and Club Caribe (1988) from LucasArts, The first online interactive fiction series QuantumLink Serial by Tracy Reed (1988), and Quantum Space, the first fully automated Play by email game (1989–1991). Also the original Dungeons & Dragons title Neverwinter Nights from Stormfront Studios (1991–1997), with the first Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) to depict the adventure with graphics instead of text (1991).

Another was the first chat room-based text role-playing game Black Bayou (1996–2004), a horror role-playing game from Hecklers Online and ANTAGONIST, Inc. In 2008 Neverwinter Nights was honored (along with Everquest and World of Warcraft) at the 59th Annual Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards for advancing the art form of MMORPG games.

In February, 1991, AOL for DOS was launched using a GeoWorks interface, followed a year later by AOL for Windows. This coincided with growth in pay-based online services, like Prodigy, CompuServe, and GEnie. AOL discontinued Q-Link and PC Link in the fall of 1994.

With regional branches around the world, the former American "Goliath among Internet service providers," once had more than 30 million subscribers on several continents. They also started AIM, another world famous application. AOL is now a part of Google.

This is the AOL logo.

http://wiki.sjs.org/wiki/index.php/MS_Technology_Vocabulary Edited by Alice Chambers: Corrected grammar, word order, spelling. Class of 2016