AppleLink was the name of both Apple Computer's online service for its users, and the client software used to access it. Prior to the commercialization of the Internet, AppleLink was a popular service for Mac and Apple IIGS users. The service was offered from about 1986 to 1994 to various groups, before being superseded by their short-lived eWorld and finally today's multiple Apple web sites. Apple Computer, Inc. ... An online service provider, in modern usage refers to an entity which provides a service online. ... The first Macintosh computer, introduced in 1984. ... The Apple IIGS was the most powerful model of the Apple II series of personal computers made by Apple Computer. ... The title given to this article is incorrect due to technical limitations. ...

The original AppleLink, which went online in 1985, was a service available only to Apple employees and dealers. Apple's consumer 800 number in fact touted this fact, promoting your dealer as the place to turn for help because of his access to AppleLink. In the late 1980s the service was also opened up to software developers, who could use it both as an end-user support system, as well as a conduit to Apple development for questions and suggestions. A toll-free telephone number (or Freephone number in the UK) is a special telephone number, in which the calling party is not charged for the call by the telephone operator. ... A software developer is a programmer who concerns him/herself with one or more facets of the software development process, a somewhat broader scope of computer programming. ...

AppleLink used client software written in Pascal under contract to Apple by Pete Burnight/Central Coast Software. The program extended the desktop metaphor of the Macintosh Finder to encompass the areas on the remote server site. These were displayed as folders and files just as local folders and files were. In addition, there was a set of public bulletin boards, and the ability to use email via the service -- although only between AppleLink users (eventually expanded, see below.) File transfer for drivers and system software was another important role, and for this Apple created the AppleLink Package format to combine and compress the two forks of a Macintosh file into one for storage and sending. Apple also developed their Communications Control Language (CCL) for AppleLink, a language still used in a very similar form for today's Macintosh modem scripts. The desktop metaphor is a set of unifying concepts currently used in a number of GUI-based operating systems. ... The Finder is the default application program used on the Mac OS and Mac OS X operating systems that is responsible for the overall user-management of files, disks, network volumes and the launching of other applications. ... E-mail, or email, is short for electronic mail and is a method of composing, sending, and receiving messages over electronic communication systems. ... The resource fork is a construct of the Mac OS operating system and implemented in all of the filesystems used for system drives on the Macintosh, MFS, HFS and HFS Plus (However later versions of mac OS could read and write to disks in formats that didnt support resourse...

The "back end" of the AppleLink system was hosted on General Electric's Information Services (GEIS) (division) Mark III time-sharing mainframes and world-wide communications network. AppleLink translated the user's GUI actions into a transaction protocol that was sent into a server program running on the mainframe. The connection used a proprietary error free sliding window protocol called EF3. Later versions upgraded this protocol to GEIS' EFX. GEIS charged fairly substantial charges, both to Apple for maintaining the service at about $30 million a year, rebilled by Apple to the end-users for connection fees of about $15 an hour during business hours. For some years prior to the discontinuation of the system, GEIS maintained a number of employees on the Apple Campus co-located with the Apple On-Line Services organization. Repeated attempts to negotiate a lower cost failed, and Apple management chafed at paying for a service that had no obviously measurable income. The General Electric Company, or GE, NYSE: GE is a multinational technology and services company. ... Mainframes (often colloquially referred to as big iron) are large and expensive computers used mainly by government institutions and large companies for legacy applications, typically bulk data processing (such as censuses, industry/consumer statistics, ERP, and bank transaction processing). ... In transmit flow control, sliding window is a variable-duration window that allows a sender to transmit a specified number of data units before an acknowledgement is received or before a specified event occurs. ... The word protocol derives from a Greek phrase meaning first leaf, referring to the first draft of a treaty. ...

Eventually Apple approached Steve Case of Quantum Computer Services, who ran a somewhat similar system for users of the Commodore 64. They reached an agreement in which Apple and Quantum would develop a new system known as AppleLink Personal Edition, which would be intended for end-users until all existing AppleLink content could be moved over and the system proved itself stable enough for support services as well. Apple users were generally disappointed that the new service did not give them access to the "real" AppleLink, and eventually the service was shut down after a short period of time. Steve Case (born August 21, 1958) was a top corporate officer of America Online, the worlds most successful proprietary online service. ... ... Commodore 64 (1982) The Commodore 64 (C64, CBM 64/CBM64, C=64) is a home computer with 64 kilobytes of RAM that was popular in the 1980s. ...

Meanwhile, interested in selling the system to other customers, GEIS developed both DOS and eventually Windows-based versions of the client software and sold the system as "DealerTalk" starting in 1986 (aiming at the Apple model of manufacturers using the system to communicate with their dealers.) All the systems, including the AppleLink community, were united behind the scenes as part of GEIS' world-wide Quik-Comm E-mail service and could exchange mail with each other and all GEIS mail customers, using addresses like MICHAEL@APPLELINK or JOHNDOE@GEIS. This was later expanded to include Internet mail addresses. Eventually, the GEIS products were renamed BusinessTalk and after a complete system rewrite and creation of their own Macintosh client program (never incorporated into AppleLink), again renamed BusinessTalk System 2000 in 1992. During this time the system (with the Windows client) also became the foundation for Microsoft's first on-line service for developers, the Microsoft Partner Network (MSPN).

On August 28th, 1991, AppleLink, running on a Macintosh Portable was used to send the first e-mail from space, aboard the space shuttle Atlantis, STS-43. Atlantis astronauts Shannon Lucid and James Adamson sent the message "Hello Earth! Greetings from the STS-43 Crew. This is the first AppleLink from space. Having a GREAT time, wish you were here,...send cryo and RCS! Hasta la vista, baby,...we'll be back!" to Marcia Ivins, a shuttle communicator at Johnson Space Center. The AppleLink software was configured with a special Macintosh Communications ToolBox Connection Tool that interfaced to Nasa's communication system which allowed the Shuttle to call up GEIS' network from space. The Shuttle's e-mail address was secret, but exposed to GEIS' e-mail network as any other AppleLink address. To avoid a deluge of incoming mail resulting from the publicity of the event, Apple set up a number of obvious "honey-pot" addresses not really used by the Shuttle crew, such as STS43@APPLELINK. Most of the well-wisher's e-mail went there, rather than to the real Atlantis address. A Macintosh portable open. ... The Space Shuttle Columbia seconds after engine ignition, 1981 (NASA). ... STS-43 was a NASA space shuttle mission in 1991. ...

Quantum retained rights to the AppleLink Personal Edition software, and released a version for both the Mac and Microsoft Windows machines in 1989, calling the new service America Online as Apple owned the AppleLink name. In 1991 the service had grown substantially, and the company was renamed as America Online Inc. Interestingly, the original AOL Macintosh software still retained within it vestiges of it's GEIS/AppleLink heritage. It was not lost on GEIS engineers that it included a version of their proprietary EF3 protocol which was never Apple's intellectual property to share with Quantum. It was handed over anyway as part of the Macintosh source code, thanks to John Scully. Although no legal action was ever pursued, this further soured the technical relationship between GEIS and Apple in the final years of AppleLink, especially since by then AOL was competing with GEIS" own consumer service, GEnie. As a result, when GEIS developed the improved EFX and upgraded AppleLink, it never released source-code to Apple, supplying only a copyrighted code-resource for the protocol. Microsoft Windows refers to a series of operating environments and operating systems created by Microsoft for use on personal computers and servers. ... America Online, or AOL for short, is a U.S.-based online service provider, Internet service provider, and media company. ... The Seal of Solomon is said to have given Sulayman power over the jinn. ...

Apple, encouraged by AOL's success and still wanting to turn the cost of AppleLink into a profit center, decided to re-enter the market. After a months-long RFP process that included GEIS as an unsuccessful bidder, Apple approached AOL at the end of 1992 to host a private-label system known as eWorld. By this time AOL had grown to be both much larger than GEIS, so all AppleLink content was to be moved over as well, allowing the GEIS service to be shut down. The eWorld software was basically a version of the original AOL software with custom graphics, giving it a distinctive look. The system was ready for launch in mid-1994. The title given to this article is incorrect due to technical limitations. ...

However by this point the rapid rise of the Internet generally killing off all smaller online services and BBS's, and online systems were generally seen as antiquated. Apple was never able to turn a profit on eWorld, and shut it down after a little over a year of operation, before it was able to supplant AppleLink. Subsequently Apple moved all of its services and replaced all of the AppleLink content with websites, apple.com. The AppleLink service was finally shut down at the end of March 1997. An online service provider is an entity which provides a service online. ... A bulletin board system or BBS is a computer system running software that allows users to dial into the system over a phone line and, using a terminal program, perform functions such as downloading software and data, uploading data, playing games, reading news, and exchanging messages with other users. ...

AppleLink's server machines (not the GEIS mainframes) were named for various famous musical composers (Beethoven, Copland, Lennon, etc.). Ludwig van Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptized 17 December 1770, Bonn – died 26 March 1827, Vienna, Austria) was a German composer of classical music, who lived predominantly in Vienna, Austria. ... Aaron Copland Aaron Copland (November 14, 1900 – December 2, 1990) was an American composer of concert and film music. ... John Lennon in the autumn of 1968 John Winston Ono Lennon (October 9, 1940 – December 8, 1980) was best known as a singer, songwriter, poet and guitarist for the British rock band The Beatles. ...

External links

• AOL, eWorld and an LC 580