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GEnie (General Electric Network for Information Exchange) was an online service created by a General Electric business, GEIS (now GXS), that ran from 1985 through the end of 1999. In 1994, GEnie claimed around 350,000 users. Peak simultaneous usage was around 10,000 users. It was one of the pioneering services in the field, though eventually replaced by the Internet and graphics-based services, most notably AOL.〔(Simutronics Timeline )〕 == Early history == GEnie was founded by Bill Louden on October 1, 1985〔(Remarks by William Louden, GM, GEnie (9/88) )〕 and was launched as an ASCII text-based service by GE's Information Services division in October 1985, and received attention as the first serious commercial competition to CompuServe. Louden was originally CompuServe's product manager for Computing, Community (forums), Games, eCommerce, and email product lines. Louden purchased DECWAR source code and had ''MegaWars'' developed, one of the earliest multi-player online games (or MMOG), in 1985. The service was run by General Electric Information Services (GEIS, now GXS) based in Rockville, Maryland. GEIS served a diverse set of large-scale, international, commercial network-based custom application needs, including banking, Electronic Data Interchange and e-mail services to companies worldwide, but was able to run GEnie on their many GE Mark III time-sharing mainframe computers that otherwise would have been underutilized after normal U.S.A. business hours. This orientation was part of GEnie's downfall. Although it became very popular and a national force in the on-line marketplace, GEnie was not allowed to grow. GEIS executives steadfastly refused to view the service as anything but "fill in" load and would not expand the network by a single phone line, let alone expand mainframe capacity, to accommodate GEnie's growing user base. (Later, however, GE did consent to make the service available through the SprintNet time-sharing network, which had its own dial-up points of presence.) The initial price for connection, at both 300 bits per second and the then-high-speed 1200 bits per second, was $5–6 per hour during "non-prime-time" hours (evenings and weekends) and $36 an hour (to discourage daytime use) otherwise, later adjusted to $6 per hour and $18 per hour, respectively. A speed of 2400 bit/s was also available at a premium. Later, GEnie developed the Star *Services package, soon renamed Genie *Basic after Prodigy threatened a trademark lawsuit over the use of the word "Star". It offered a set of "unlimited use" features for $4.95/month. Other services cost extra, mirroring the tiered service model popular at the time. GEnie's forums were called RoundTables (RTs), and each, as well as other internal services, had a page number associated with it, akin to a Web address today; typing "m 1335", for instance, would bring you to the GemStone III game page. The service included RTs, games, mail and shopping. For some time, GEnie published a bimonthly print magazine, ''LiveWire''. GEnie's early chat room was called the LiveWire CB Simulator,〔(The Information Center's guide to LiveWire CB Simulator )〕 after the citizens' band radios popular at the time. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「genie」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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