A programmer rebuilt CompuServe in Pascal, down to its GO commands and CB chat rooms
Gary Sullenger’s preservation project restores working mail and forums, while admitting which old information feeds are gone.
CompuServe is accepting terminal connections again, and the address contains a comma-shaped memory trigger. Gary Sullenger’s recreation offers a guest account, a sign-up account and the familiar numbered menus. The browser supplies the terminal, so your modem can remain gloriously unemployed.
Sullenger describes the project as a “working recreation” of the 1980s service. He rebuilt it in Pascal, using historical manuals and recovered material to establish how the screens and commands should behave. This is an independent preservation project, with no affiliation to the owners of the CompuServe name.
His starting point was wonderfully domestic. His wife wanted a site for selling things; while building the database and editing its front end in a console, he recognized the shape of something he already knew. A classified-ad idea gradually acquired the communications system around it. The project took years of evenings and weekends, according to his account.
Working areas include CB Simulator, forums, news, weather, EasyPlex mail and file storage. The documentation says page codes came from an OCR’d user manual. GO CB and TOP therefore serve a purpose beyond decorating a screenshot. They give the visitor an actual route through the reconstructed service.
The missing pieces are just as revealing. Some original pages were entrances to other companies’ databases, airline schedules and information feeds. Those arrangements cannot be restored by drawing a convincing menu. Sullenger leaves holes where the content no longer exists, instead of filling every door with invented period-looking material. That is an honest kind of incomplete.
A guest can look around before requesting an account. New accounts require sysop approval, which the site says can take up to 24 hours. A system operator sitting between sign-up and access feels almost exotic beside today’s instant-registration forms, although the old word probably explains the arrangement better than another automated welcome sequence would.
The preservation also has intentional deviations. The site says it adds color to some games and encryption for user data and messaging. Keeping the experience recognizable does not require reproducing every historical weakness. You can study how a service organized people and information without insisting the passwords enjoy the same period authenticity.
For readers who run systems, the useful comparison is the boundary between an interface and the services behind it. Rebuilding commands and screens can make an old workflow usable. Rebuilding the vanished relationships that fed it is another job entirely. This version gives people enough working rooms to understand the place, while the empty rooms show what the manuals could not bring back.
The sysop still has the keys.