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The Source (service)
Encyclopedia
The Source was in operation from 1979 to 1989, when it was purchased by rival CompuServe
CompuServe
CompuServe was the first major commercial online service in the United States. It dominated the field during the 1980s and remained a major player through the mid-1990s, when it was sidelined by the rise of services such as AOL with monthly subscriptions rather than hourly rates...
and discontinued sometime thereafter. The Source's headquarters were located at 1616 Anderson Road, McLean, Virginia
McLean, Virginia
McLean is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Fairfax County in Northern Virginia. The community had a total population of 48,115 as of the 2010 census....
22102 (it maintained an additional address at P.O. Box 1305, McLean, Virginia
McLean, Virginia
McLean is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Fairfax County in Northern Virginia. The community had a total population of 48,115 as of the 2010 census....
22101-1305).
History
The Source was founded in 1978 as Digital Broadcasting Corporation by Bill von Meister, with support from Jack R. Taub, a businessman who had been very successful publishing the Scott catalogueScott catalogue
The Scott catalogue of postage stamps, published by Scott Publishing Co, a subsidiary of Amos Press, is updated annually and lists all the stamps of the entire world which its editors recognize as issued for postal purposes. It is published in six large volumes and is also produced in...
of postage stamps. Initially the idea was to transmit email using an unused subcarrier
Subcarrier
A subcarrier is a separate analog or digital signal carried on a main radio transmission, which carries extra information such as voice or data. More technically, it is an already-modulated signal, which is then modulated into another signal of higher frequency and bandwidth...
piggy-backed onto FM radio signals. Instead, the two hit on the idea of an "information utility", using cheap overnight excess capacity in minicomputer
Minicomputer
A minicomputer is a class of multi-user computers that lies in the middle range of the computing spectrum, in between the largest multi-user systems and the smallest single-user systems...
s and data networks to make online information available to dial-up subscribers. Having secured publishing rights and put in place the necessary software, the system was announced at Comdex
COMDEX
COMDEX was a computer expo held in Las Vegas, Nevada, each November from 1979 to 2003. It was one of the largest computer trade shows in the world, usually second only to the German CeBIT, and by many accounts one of the largest trade shows in any industry sector...
in June 1979. At a launch in New York the following month, Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov was an American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. Asimov was one of the most prolific writers of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000...
declared it to be "the start of the information age". Prices were initially $100 for a subscription, then $2.75 per hour off-peak. However, the project had already run up large debts, and soon began running out of money. Taub sold an 80% controlling stake to Reader's Digest
The Reader's Digest Association
The Reader's Digest Association, Inc. is a global media and direct marketing company, best known for its flagship publication founded in 1922, Reader's Digest...
to keep the company afloat. Von Meister initiated legal action, and received a $1 million pay-off. He went on to found Control Video Corporation, which ultimately evolved into AOL
AOL
AOL Inc. is an American global Internet services and media company. AOL is headquartered at 770 Broadway in New York. Founded in 1983 as Control Video Corporation, it has franchised its services to companies in several nations around the world or set up international versions of its services...
.
Reader's Digest had high expectations for The Source, and established for the company its own purpose-built installation of Prime minicomputers
Prime Computer
Prime Computer, Inc. was a Natick, Massachusetts-based producer of minicomputers from 1972 until 1992. The alternative spellings "PR1ME" and "PR1ME Computer" were used as brand names or logos by the company.-Founders:...
in McLean, Virginia. However, subscriber numbers were slow to build, and (unlike the leaner set-up at rival Compuserve
CompuServe
CompuServe was the first major commercial online service in the United States. It dominated the field during the 1980s and remained a major player through the mid-1990s, when it was sidelined by the rise of services such as AOL with monthly subscriptions rather than hourly rates...
) this facility became an expensive and under-used overhead to maintain. Losses continued to mount, and chief executives came and went. Rumors abounded of an impending sale, but eventually Control Data Corporation
Control Data Corporation
Control Data Corporation was a supercomputer firm. For most of the 1960s, it built the fastest computers in the world by far, only losing that crown in the 1970s after Seymour Cray left the company to found Cray Research, Inc....
put up $5 million in 1983 in return for stock options, and came in as an operating partner.
As the microcomputer boom continued, subscriptions reached a peak of 80,000 members, but later fell back (compared to 500,000 at Compuserve by 1989). During much of its existence The Source charged a start-up fee of about US$100 and hourly usage rates on the order of $10 per hour. In 1984, the registration fee was $49.95, and The Source charged $20.75 per hour between 7:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. Monday through Friday, and $7.75 per hour on nights, weekends and holidays for 300 baud service. For 1200 baud service, there was an additional $5.00 per hour surcharge during weekday hours, and a $3.00 per hour surcharge at all other times. To place these costs for data services into an historical context, The Source's base nighttime and weekend rate of $7.75 per hour in 1984 was approximately twice the federal minimum hourly wage in this same time period, placing the ability to access data with a personal computer in the hands of businesses and wealthy households only. Just as the expense of books gave rise to the library, the advent of data services provided by school and public library computers was a natural progression during this period in history.
The Source provided news sources, weather, stock quotations, a shopping service, electronic mail, various databases, online text of magazines, and airline schedules. It also had a newsgroup-like facility known as PARTICIPATE (or PARTI), which was developed by Participation Systems of Winchester, Massachusetts. PARTICIPATE provided what it called "many to many" communications, or computer conferencing, and hosted "Electures" on The Source, such as Paul Levinson
Paul Levinson
Paul Levinson is an American author and professor of communications and media studies at Fordham University in New York City. Levinson's novels, short fiction, and non-fiction works have been translated into twelve languages....
's "Space: Humanizing the Universe" in the spring of 1985.
Intended for use with 300- and 1200-baud dial-up telephone connections, The Source was text-based for most of its existence.
External links
- David Carlson's Virtual World - The Online Timeline
- Article on The Source at The Online Timeline
- The Source Keeps Trying, InfoworldInfoWorldInfoWorld is an information technology online media and events business operating under the umbrella of InfoWorld Media Group, a division of IDG...
, 5 November 1984. Including a box on the service's early history.