From 1988 to 1996, IBM and Sears jointly operated a diagrammatically rich online service called Prodigy, which allowed users from all over the United States of America to dial in and view upwind, stocks, news, and more while also exchanging emails and bulletin circuit card posts with other users.
When the service squinting down in 1999 (after a few ownership changes), Presage took its rich history of graphical screens with information technology. All seemed lost until a software engineer titled Jim Carpenter patterned out a way to extract "fossilized" information from Prodigy client cache files (called Phase.DAT). I wrote about his quest for The Atlantic back in 2022.
In response to the article, Jim and I received several STAGE.DAT files (from which we extracted various screens) along with screenshots of advertisements and artwork created for the service back in the sidereal day (if you'd wish to help, see this page). In the slides ahead, I'll take you on a brief virtual tour of the service victimisation umpteen screens that have ne'er been seen earlier on the Cyberspace. It's a compelling (albeit incomplete) consider of what victimisation Prodigy was same in the azoic 1990s.
Logging on
Whenever users launched their Prodigy node software, they were presented with a distinctive login screen that looked similar to this one. Later typewriting in the ID and Password, the node would dial up a previously configured telephone numeral and connect to the service. If the login credentials checked impermissible, users were online and ready to go.
Highlights
After logging in, Omen would exhibit the Highlights paginate, which was advised the front page of the service. It contained nationalist news program headlines, service announcements, and advertisements that everyone on the avail would see first thing. If you had new mail, you would be prompted with a winking icon in the quoin of the screen. (Unlike the other shots therein slideshow, this is an actual exposure of a estimator monitor affected by early Prodigy artist Anthony Whetzel.)
MadMaze
Prodigy offered individual games to its subscribers finished the years, and the most popular of all was probably MadMaze, a screen-based adventure game where players attempted to navigate a maze from a first-person perspective. Many geezerhood later, a fan created a web-based remake of the game that you can still caper today (if you have a compatible IE browser).
You'll also notice an ad across the bottom of the screen. Galore pages on Prodigy contained these banners that, if clicked, would bring on the substance abuser to another screen detailing an pop the question or more information on a production. Advertising was designed into Prodigy from the beginning.
If a user clicked connected Beaver State elite the "Look" button on a banner advertisement, they would be taken to a page ilk this one, which was created past commercial artist Anthony Whetzel for a 1992 Coca-Cola promo. It detailed a CD giveaway that tied into the Summer Olympics. Data about the promo continued on the next page, which users would get to by clicking on the "Next" clitoris on the toolbar crosswise the bottom of the screen.
Airline tickets
Among the services Prodigy provided was the ability to purchase airway tickets, which was a extraordinary convenience at the time. This screen shows one such outlet on Prodigy called Eaasy/QuickTix. Prior to online services like Prodigy, you needed to acquire tickets through a go down agency by physically visiting an office or actually talking to a human over the telephone. Sepulchral, ripe?
Sharp Wizard advertisement
Here's another advertisement fashioned by Whetzel—this clock for the Sharp Wizard pocket organizer. Prodigy's scheme of transmitter graphics produced bright, audacious illustrations that, while missing in detail, were quick to download and smoothly scalable to any answer.
Grolier's Academic American Encyclopedia
One of the most popular features on Prodigy—especially among school-age kids—was access to an online encyclopedia. Imagine: Instead of having to drive to a subroutine library and flavor in a book, you could sit in your own home, type in a phrase, and instantly receive information about the topic on your computer. As quaint As it seems now, it was a mind-blowing capability at the time. (IT made composition my history reports much easier.)
Baby-Sitters Club
This is ane of the most interesting screens Jim Carpenter extracted from a STAGE.DAT data file we received from an ex-Prodigy user. I'm slightly metagrobolized by its claim meaning, but it appears to be a date book and reminder service on Prodigy that was laced into the popular Baby-Sitters Club series of youth novels. Information technology's like a primitive Orchard apple tree Siri, but rendered over telephone dial-awake. Uncovering unrecoverable capabilities like this is nonpareil of the main reasons Carpenter and I want to preserve information just about Prodigy.
Here we see another vector ad masterpiece created by Whetzel for Prodigy back in the former 1990s. This was role of a multi-page animated military campaign for IBM PS/2 computers. Since IBM co-closely-held the service, the companionship much bundled the Prodigy guest software and carbon monoxide-promoted the service with its PCs.
After a few screens illustrating how fast IBM PS/2 computers were (including the preceding slide), the exploiter would end up on this page of the IBM advertisement, welcoming them to the Nineties—as in both the decade and the PS/2 model numbers. Such an intimate, telltale slice of vintage digital culture would otherwise represent lost if people like Whetzel had not stolen the time to file away it. IT makes you wonder around the tens of thousands of Portent pages that haven't been found or found—priceless digital artifacts and artworks that throw been potentially been lost to the sands of sentence.
Logging bump off
Hera's another rare extracted page from a STAGE.DAT file, and it's an critical one: the logoff screen—what users would control when leaving the service. Information technology mentions promos for Sesamum indicum Street (envisage what that must have looked like), the said Baby-Sitters Club, and 9600bps service "for NO extra monthly tip!" Even cooler is the ad for 1993 minivans at the merchantman of the varlet.
Yes, Prodigy was a unique capsulise of digital artistry that, divagation from this fistful of screens, some fatal-and-white photos in books, and more or less a one hundred new screens we let well, has completely been wiped from history in the lead to this point. If you feel you can assist with this recovery in any style (particularly if you have an old Prodigy client installation posing around), delight send Maine an email.
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