Tonight we’re gonna log on like it’s 1979

There is something to be said for the permanence of paper, even though teletypes have killed a lot of forests. A set of teletype transcripts from several users logging on to The Source, one of the earliest online services, and a complete copy of the service's user manual were found by me while working on building a functional Silent 700 Model 765 ASR teletype.

It's time to get out your copy of Pink Floyd's The Wall, start playing "In The Flesh" and go back to 1979 and 1980 when these transcripts were printed. The Silent 700 transcripts show exactly what happened and how people used the service.

A brief history of The Source

One of the first online services that was oriented to the general public was The Source. The consumer service it became better known for was established in 1979. The original idea was to send email over the radio, but the technology wasn't reliable. The Source's company forged a deal with Dialcom to use its excess mini computer time overnight and on weekends for the same idea.

The world's first commercial email service was developed by Dialcom in 1978 and later offered internationally. The service was in charge of the entire market outside the US. The new endeavor gave Dialcom an additional revenue stream and enabled The Source's parent company to offer substantially lower rates since the cost of procuring and maintaining the mini computers was more or less constant. For similar reasons, off-peak and on-peak rates were ubiquitous among early services, most of which were mini computer-based at that time.

The source was launched at COMDEX. The one-time $100 subscription fee deterred all but the determined, and even off-peak, it was $2.75 an hour billed to the minute and rounded up. All day and all weekend were defined as off-peak. It was fifteen dollars an hour if you were foolish, desperate, or rich enough to use it.

Prime was one of the largest vendors of mini computers. The Prime systems from 1972 were compatible with the 16 bit machines. The machines they were working on were 32-bit. Because of the engineering background, early Primes were designed to run the operating system "Primos". The Prime 200 machines that ran the 2.x version of the Dialcom systems were used at the time.

Many of Dialcom's customers were located in the Washington, DC, area, as well as The Source, which was located in Virginia. You had to dial a local number to access Dialcom from DC.