CompuServe Information Manager (CIM) was

CompuServe Information Service CompuServe, Inc. (CompuServe Information Service, Inc., also known by its initialism CIS or later CSi) was an American Internet company that provided the first major commercial online service. It opened in 1969 as a timesharing and remote access ...

's client software, used with the company's Host Micro Interface (HMI). The program provided a

GUI Gui or GUI may refer to: People Surname * Gui (surname), an ancient Chinese surname, ''xing'' * Bernard Gui (1261 or 1262–1331), inquisitor of the Dominican Order * Luigi Gui (1914–2010), Italian politician * Gui Minhai (born 1964), Ch ...

front end to the text-based CompuServe service that was at the time accessed using a standard terminal program with

alphanumeric Alphanumericals or alphanumeric characters are any collection of number characters and letters in a certain language. Sometimes such characters may be mistaken one for the other. Merriam-Webster suggests that the term "alphanumeric" may often ...

al shortcuts.

History

Issued at the same time as the GUI-only

America Online AOL (formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City, and a brand marketed by Yahoo! Inc. (2017–present), Yahoo! Inc. The service tra ...

began to grow in popularity, CIM was available for

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few op ...

("DOSCIM"),

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

("WinCIM"),

Macintosh Mac is a brand of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 1984. The name is short for Macintosh (its official name until 1999), a reference to the McIntosh (apple), McIntosh apple. The current product lineup inclu ...

("MacCIM"), and

OS/2 OS/2 is a Proprietary software, proprietary computer operating system for x86 and PowerPC based personal computers. It was created and initially developed jointly by IBM and Microsoft, under the leadership of IBM software designer Ed Iacobucci, ...

("CIM for OS/2") and allowed access to CompuServe's features, such as its forums, chat, e-mail, and messaging facilities; these continued to be accessible via standard communications software using alphanumeric shortcuts. The first versions were released in around 1990. Version 2.0.1, released in 1994, included a version of the

Mosaic web browser NCSA Mosaic is a discontinued web browser. It was instrumental in popularizing the World Wide Web and the general Internet during the 1990s by integrating multimedia such as text and graphics. Although not the first web browser (preceded by Wor ...

. Later, CompuServe switched parts of its service over to its new binary protocol, Host Micro Interface. Unlike its predecessor, this new protocol was not usable directly via a

telnet Telnet (sometimes stylized TELNET) is a client-server application protocol that provides access to virtual terminals of remote systems on local area networks or the Internet. It is a protocol for bidirectional 8-bit communications. Its main ...

client thus requiring the use of specialised client software like CIM. Version 3.0 (CompuServe for Windows 3.0), in 1997, was intended to compete head-on with AOL, and was released amid an advertising campaign in which CompuServe was briefly re-branded as "CSi". After CompuServe was purchased by

AOL AOL (formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City, and a brand marketed by Yahoo! Inc. The service traces its history to an online ...

in 1998, CompuServe began providing CompuServe branded versions of the AOL client software known as CompuServe 2000 and CompuServe 7 and its protocols as a way to access the service. However, it remained possible to connect to WinCIM via HMI, which became known as the "CompuServe Classic" service.

Other CompuServe client programs

TapCIS CompuServe, Inc. (CompuServe Information Service, Inc., also known by its initialism CIS or later CSi) was an American Internet company that provided the first major commercial online service. It opened in 1969 as a timesharing and remote access ...

* OzWin * NavCIS * ForCIS * AutoSIG

References

{{reflist 1990 software CompuServe Classic Mac OS software DOS software OS/2 software Windows software