Hey check this out!
I'm looking through my Ahoy magazine and I ran across this ad for a free Commodore 300 baud modem!
How cool is that Here's the ad -
http://www.flickr.com/photos/26131074@N07/2746703479/
Ok, so the Ahoy mag is from Oct. 1988 and maybe this deal is done (expired in March of 1989) but -
Does anyone here remember Q-link? I certainly do. Armed with my trusty Commodore 64 and a 300 baud modem - it dialed up Vienna, Virginia from my spot in Northeast Ohio, and I was off and running! It was exciting to look through the 'software' catalog and also to download the cool music files they had available. The cost was a mere $9.95 a month and with that blisteringly fast 300 baud you could download 20 or 40k stuff in what seemed like no time at all! Until I got my first phone bill - that is - where after paying the $9.95 Q-link fee I also was billed $4.80 an hour for the calls. Yikes! The wife went through the roof on this one. "$80. to download a bunch of 1's and 0's! Are you nuts!", she exclaimed. "Honey, I pleaded, but just listen to these cool Commodore music files!" It was hopeless though. Some people just don't appreciate history in the making and high tech equipment and I had to give up my new found link with the outside world.
I quickly switched to a local BBS service though, and life was good once again
Q-link lasted a few years and then evolved into - - America Online! My Commodore 64 lasted me 10 years and silently slid into computer history.
Further reading about Q-link or 'Quantum Link" is here if you're interested.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Link
I'm looking through my Ahoy magazine and I ran across this ad for a free Commodore 300 baud modem!
How cool is that Here's the ad -
http://www.flickr.com/photos/26131074@N07/2746703479/
Ok, so the Ahoy mag is from Oct. 1988 and maybe this deal is done (expired in March of 1989) but -
Does anyone here remember Q-link? I certainly do. Armed with my trusty Commodore 64 and a 300 baud modem - it dialed up Vienna, Virginia from my spot in Northeast Ohio, and I was off and running! It was exciting to look through the 'software' catalog and also to download the cool music files they had available. The cost was a mere $9.95 a month and with that blisteringly fast 300 baud you could download 20 or 40k stuff in what seemed like no time at all! Until I got my first phone bill - that is - where after paying the $9.95 Q-link fee I also was billed $4.80 an hour for the calls. Yikes! The wife went through the roof on this one. "$80. to download a bunch of 1's and 0's! Are you nuts!", she exclaimed. "Honey, I pleaded, but just listen to these cool Commodore music files!" It was hopeless though. Some people just don't appreciate history in the making and high tech equipment and I had to give up my new found link with the outside world.
I quickly switched to a local BBS service though, and life was good once again
Q-link lasted a few years and then evolved into - - America Online! My Commodore 64 lasted me 10 years and silently slid into computer history.
Further reading about Q-link or 'Quantum Link" is here if you're interested.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Link