AOL Disks and CDs. If you find anything in your stuff, post them!

[RH | 4,903]

I was shuffling through some stuff in some drawers in my office and I cam across this AOL 2.0 diskette. I’m in a borrowed office and the owner of the home is about to have an estate sale to clear out 90% of what’s in hear.

Anyway, I have a bit of leeway to go through some of the drawers and shelves in here and ai found this AOL diskette.

For those around my age, we are all to aware that before CD drives were ubiquitous in our PCs, we had to save and distribute media by 3.25” diskettes. AOLs strategy was to blitz everyone’s mail boxes with diskettes of their software and it worked for them.  But, even if you didn’t care for AOL, no one really mind getting a free diskette in the mail every few months. Theses things weren’t expensive but they weren’t cheap as dirt either.  Being able to erase them and reuse them was kind of nice.

as common as these were in the mid-90s (and they were super common) you don’t see them often now.  In fact, this is probably the first time I’ve personally seen one of these diskettes in 10-12 years!

So, here’s to a bit of nostalgia for these things. If you happen to have or run into your own diskettes in your possession, feel free to post yours too! I’m not so much looking to catalog these because I’m sure someone, somewhere has a database of all of these disks and CDs. I just figured it be fun to share and remember what we have from that era of the internet and what had to be one of the most expensive mailing campaigns in history.

[Boosted52405 | 178]

Clean condition.  Label slightly off-center.  Solid 8.5/10.

 

OMG A and B drives for floppy drives...the memories...I hustled the city with zip drives if you guys remember those lmao.

[twiztor | 850]

a few years later, when AOL switched to CDs, my friends and i used to just scoop up as many as we could. We'd cover peoples' cars with them, fill up bags/desks/lockers with them, hide them inside random books at the library.....you name it, we probably filled it up with free AOL CDs. 

[RH | 4,903]

30 minutes ago, twiztor said:

a few years later, when AOL switched to CDs, my friends and i used to just scoop up as many as we could. We'd cover peoples' cars with them, fill up bags/desks/lockers with them, hide them inside random books at the library.....you name it, we probably filled it up with free AOL CDs. 

My “game” wasn’t to take them but to only collect them as they came in the mail.  Every couple of months my friends and I would report our numbers just to see who had the most. I legit think I had about 40 of those CDs, again, mailed to my house, unrequested and just bulk mail distributed... Think about that.

[captmorgandrinker | 1,649]

Version 2.0?   Look at you mister fancypants!

I recall when some free magazine in the dorm had these, I snagged a whole bunch just for the disks (I think they were still like 10-15 bucks for a box of 25, so nothing to sniff at for a college kid, especially one with a computer major).

[DefaultGen | 5,401]

I used to pick these up from like grocery stores and whatever all the time. A whole CD for free! What a deal!

Not sure where I learned it, but AOL 1.0 disks are apparently extremely expensive. Looking at Ebay there seems to be no shortage of them but people want $100! There's a 1.0 membership kit for a grand, jeez.

[RH | 4,903]

Well, a Mac version of 1.0 did sell for $78, plus shipping.  Only two bids but still. That’s more than I’d expect.

[Estil | 1,264]

I once knew someone waaaay back in the early 2000s on Yahoo Messenger (those were the days; that's how I first met my wife ) who was really obsessed with collecting AOL CD's...now that you brought it up I wonder whatever became of her and if she's still doing that hobby.