Vintage Q-Link (AOL) Promotion Video (1986)

[neilgriswold]

I remember Q-Link. It was great for its time. I used hang in the coffee room every morning. The worst thing about it, 5 cents a minute would add up quickly.

[BrianPex]

@neilgriswold Yup! LOL! Good to see others that were online then... I was a BETA tester for Rabbit Jacks Casino and could play all day for free.. What a wonderful time.. I was 13.. LOL'

[poopskinTheLiar]

The feeling of finding someone else's nostalgia is quite odd. For me, this is simply a fascinating look back in time at the internet that once was...but for another generation, something that brings fond memories of another time -- memories with personal significance that i'll never know -- to the surface.

The difference a daub of perspective can make is quite odd.

[gjc82071]

@poopskinTheLiar I totally understand what you mean. We all have our own nostalgic memories. Mine are from when I was a young kid/teen in the late 1970's-mid 1980's. But getting back to your comment, unless you've actually lived through an era/time, there is absolutely no way you can ever really relate to the nostalgia for that period. Without a reference point, it's little more than a history lesson to you. BTW, really cool/nice comment. It's very thought invoking.

[BrianPex]

@gjc82071 I loved the local BBS's at the time also!

[bb38313]

commodore was ahead of its time. I did things Bill Gates only dreamed of back in the day

[markliederbach]

I gotta get me one of those!

[StylistRhymist]

u guys r stupid this is fake

[67tr876]

@StylistRhymist No its not dumbass

[StylistRhymist]

@67tr876 HUMANS WERE NOT THAT SMART BACK THEN SO THIS IS COMPLETELY FAKE BILL GATES IS WHY IPODS EXIST

[Draknfyre]

@StylistRhymist

People landed on the moon 40 years ago.

Who the hell are you to say how smart people were then?

[stephenvandusen]

I assume the username "steve c" is Steve Case?

[xabat77]

3:44 Eastern Airlines FTW! This service woulda blown my mind in 1986.

[wmaalouli]

I actually was a user of Q-Link, and it was really revolutionary for the times, primarily it's graphical interface. We also had of course the Compuserve, Delphi and GEnie services among others, but these were strictly text based and were more intimidating to the average user, and also required an 80 col display which was not available on the C64 computer (I was also a member of all of these at one point). The good old times? Not really: it was simply what was available at the time...

[jeffmdaemon]

Holy shit! First footage of club caribe I have managed to find yet. God I loved that game.

[kakashi76767]

whoa this looks cool! i want it!

[samiwistler]

Video power, Good to know there are things i do not know

[jejeroy]

internet without HTML LOLLL its was surelly soo bad i am just happy of being born at the end of the 80

[philiptwood]

Big 80s baby... Everything bigger then LIFE. LOL

[Daytona400f]

EPIC

[DreadsideNubune]

wow so many colours i cand handle this

[Miptrr]

If any old timers out there who use to be a sysop in People Connection... drop me a line... Sysop gm

They would not let me have gdm cause of G--Damn similarity.

[GettingStrange]

At 1:30 are those freakin' emoticons?

[surgednb]

lol "electronic mail"

[ghiggy]

Incredible!  I had Quantum Link and Playnet, if anyone remembers that.

[mmichael0]

I am going to get my Commodore 64 out again ;)

[LevSix]

I was on Q-link! Hahah. I used to look up things on the encyclopedia for school. It was very ahead of its time. I remember going nuts on people in the chat rooms when I was a kid. I was a winner!

[Pookie2419]

i remember this clear as day. i was 10 yrs old during the time. its great to see this again. if this was still in existance, i'd probably still use it just because.

[clboling]

The graphics were kind of novel, but I wasn't all that thrilled by the whole "virtual world" thing -- esp. not for $5/hr. I spent most of my time on local BBSs (mostly plain text), and used my Q-Link subscription mostly to take advantage of their large download repository....

[parsongeorge]

OMG!!!!

[vmystikilv]

I think i saw an early 3d GTA, lol

[theRealIonian]

The music is a big win! Shame I can't get a straight recording of that! :) I joined Quantum Link in March of '84 I believe. I also have a "Quantum Link 2nd Anniversary" T-Shirt for being a member their first year they opened! It's gray. I never wore it and it's in my dresser... Now I can't wear it since Quantum Link is gone and it's irreplaceable! Thanks for the Vid!

[bjpakosta]

now thats Full HD resolution...

[parsongeorge]

@bjpakosta lmao

[OutlawTomFantastic]

Awesome. Habitat looked so cool back in the day but I think the developers had feature creep and could never settle down and release the thing.

[justin76pa]

The first time I got online was 1990 with Prodigy. Amazing that services like this were around in the mid 80's.

[wado1942]

I remember my best friend using this in the 4th grade (1990) and I thought it was the most boring thing that ever existed. Boy was I wrong!

[DevilMaster]

HOLY CRAP there were already smileys in the 80s!

[gjc82071]

Wow. Slightly ahead of it's time, & being restricted to only Commodore hurt it. With 20+ million commodore owners, I can see how they thought it could be a profitable idea. I am going to check this out for fun. It is still around, kind of.

Quantum Link Reloaded

You need a commodore 64 emulator & the right file, look up Quantum link on Wiki for instruction (if interested)

[oldtwins]

@gjc82071

Didn't hurt them by being on Commodores only. Quite the contrary. Gave them the cash base and ingenuity to evolve to the next step. Guess who they were(are)? AOL.

[enigmaticocean]

I was on this in the mid to late 1980's. I remember talking to people from all over the world. I think there were only a few thousand people online at the time

[SinglCuteGuy]

I used to love going on QLink! My name was Consolcwby and I was a RDI regular. I also used to use ARC recursively to upload an entire disk's worth of levels for a shareware game, AND was a real troublemaker when it came to those name that tune sort of games we played in People Connection! Most internet lingo used today came from PC! Man, I miss those halcyon days!... googal Quantum Link Reloaded and be AMAZED! lol! :PPppPPpppPPPppPPPppPP

[BoogsterSU2]

AOL was so old back then ;)

Now, we have a new AOL! :O Bye-bye Triangle logo we will miss u ;-{

[gjc82071]

@BoogsterSU2 The Triangle Logo has returned!

Sort of. Some Commodore enthusiasts made a program called Quantum Link Reloaded. If you download a Commodore 64 emulator (I recommend VICE) & the right file, you can log on via a Commodore 64. Check out Quantum Link on Wiki for more info if your interested.

[ddog92841]

I don't see this as comical but as cutting edge for its time

[TheLastBrainLeft]

I had this for my C64 back in 1988. Very little of these things actually worked without at least a 256K RAM expansion module, which I never had. Fortunately I had a friend with a 128 and a 512 K REM.

[EWAdams]

Thank you for this contribution. You might be interested to know that your video was submitted in evidence to a British patent lawsuit. Someone tried to patent certain features of online gaming. RabbitJack's Casino used those features, but came out before the patent was issued, so the patent was ruled invalid.

[jjlisenbee]

Which patent was ruled invalid?

[EWAdams]

It was a European patent, number EP00625760B1 if that helps anything. It tried to patent several things. One was having a client and a server where the server only transmitted the minimum data necessary to play the game because the graphics were already on the player's machine. RabbitJack's did that before the patent was issued, so the patent was not an invention.

[jjlisenbee]

What is the server implementation in 2001 by Keith Henrickson. Which basic commands got moved to the server?

[EWAdams]

I don't understand the question. The server for RabbitJack's Casino was implemented by Craig Dykstra about 1986.

[EQuiHex]

Brings me back. I remember the original RDI...spent quite a good deal of time there. Would love to find out what happened to everyone from back then. I was iilana and RDI Krystl.

[ourcellphonespayus]

Had an Apple then. We only used it for the golf game after work. We had a blast even though it was only black & white. What goes around comes around. The Q-link may make it back! NOT

[salazarmark]

LOL

[Murple333]

You have the original file of this online? I wanna see it without the YouTube compression mangling... this is a real keeper! I miss QLink.

[Almafeta]

I really wanted to play in QuantumLink when I was a kid... but my parents wouldn't let me use a modem, and only got me a C64 after QuantumLink had become AOL. :(

[nubbie1944]

@Almafeta Damn dude, that was 1995.

[galavant]

I was Flying V on Q-link. That Club Caribe was just like Playstation Home. Way ahead of it's time. Everything on Q-link was great and reasonably fast (ASCII text on a 1200 baud MODEM rocked except Club Caribe had to load the grapics often, not many people were there because it cost more (premium service) and it was Club Caribe was extremely slow.

[Yousless1]

Q-link was great. I spent many nights talking with so many people. Wonder where they all are now. I went by useless1 then. Had lots of friends and am still in touch with one of them Thanks for the video.

[nitroelite]

THis thing became AOL. LoL

[Webins]

How winderful. THanks for uploading.

I sometimes wonder if things back then weren't perhaps better in some way, before the computer and internet becomes such an over-whelming dominant factor in our lives.

[Blackadder75]

Dammit. Now I know how the internet billionaires got their ideas. They were lucky enough to have parents with a Commodore and saw Quantum link as kids... so many great modern ideas are showcased here 10-15 years early!!!!!!!!

My parents only got me an Atari :(

[jeffmdaemon]

maaan...this is the only place to date where you can see video of club caribe. That place was so ahead of its time.

I was a qlink junkie, I think my biggest bill was 200 bucks. Btw the speed the video is running at is 1200. I ran it both 300 and 1200. The day I got my 1200 it was like the clouds lifted. not only in speed, but the modem supported more features too like touch tone dialing, and automatic pickup.

[simikolon]

when I see this vid, I wish beeing born 20 years earlier ;) then I could be an awsome geek now!

thanks for this vid!

[arteitle]

Everyone see in the video how slowly text was received and written to the screen? That's 300 baud for you, probably over a Commodore 1660 modem. The step up to 1200 bits/second with the model 1670 was a huge improvement. How fast is your connection today? Probably at least 5,000,000 bits/second.

[justifiedchild]

Is this real? Surely this isn't real? Pre-ebay and online shopping in '86? I am having a hard time believing this.

[DevilMaster]

Well, there IS an article for it on Wikipedia.

[nitroelite]

Yeah its real i was on most of 87 draining my bank account. LoL

[COMALiteJ]

@justifiedchild, yes, it's real. And it wasn't even the first. PlayNet (there's a video of it here on YouTube) had many of these features, and even the same user interface, over a year before QuantumLink. And QuantumLink didn't even write their own software at first — they licensed it from PlayNet.

Without these, there would never have been an AOL. Quantum Computer Services later created AppleLink and PC Link, and from those made America OnLine, and only later changed the company name.

[gapenisbruzas]

I loved quantum link; especially club caribe.

[steveasat2]

Ugh, emoticons from 1986? I'd somehow forgotten about that.

[HatNJ]

WOW Cool I was on Qlin from near the beginning to the tragic end in 1994

Now Im on the new Qlink-Realoaded without the Plus time charges

[markw47711]

I wish I could talk with Brad Hanson and Tim Heron again, I hope they are well

[jci10]

Patent reform and this video should wipe out all those bogus Patents on internet gaming as this predates them by decades....good job!

[mzbetherz]

Believe it or not, I met my first husband thru People Connection in 1988... we might've been the first online "love story" for all I know!! We lived 700 miles apart and met in one of the chat rooms.

[tvnewsguy11]

What's incredible about this is it reminds us online shopping, chat, e-mail, MMRPG, RSS and pretty much everything else we take for granted on the Internet, was available more than 20 years ago. Thanks for the post!

[TerrorBlack]

@tvnewsguy11 In 1986 could you podcast that tweet into the blogosphere while you vblog the streaming video onto your facebook? No. Internet wins.

[harleykman]

@TerrorBlack Yes you could send "tweets" into the message boards for all your friends to see, and yes you could watch videos, but not at the same time (the 1k connection was too slow)

.

[gajillion]

@harleykman If by "tweets" you mean messages, and by "message boards" you mean actual message boards, then this technology was around hundreds if not thousands of years before there were even computers.

[harleykman]

@gajillion Really? I was not aware Ancient Romans had the ability to send messages to friends over thousands of miles in just one second. Amazing

.

But seriously - we had a lot of the same capabilities in the 80s that we have on modern computers. It's just that back then the instant messaging was limited to geeks, and it took a little while for the rest of the world to catch up. Kinda similar to how early hobbyists had cars in the 1890s, but they didn't become mainstream until the 1920s

.

[BrianPex]

@harleykman I remember 300 BAUD MODEM! LOL!

[scot949]

I was a Q-Link fanatic from the time they started until 1992 when I switched to AOL on a Mac. Those truly were the good old days (except for the awful bills that you could run up!) Thank for posting this video!

[ppjeremy]

Computers will never be the same again!

[mrsentual]

Holy shit!

[Acelib]

Amazing.

[Yowzoe]

I look at this and think: the good ol' days were not so great. Now we waste our lives online faster, cheaper, and better.

btw, the narrator in this clip has got to be the same guy who voices the famous Tom Cruise tribute video produced by Scientology.