Old (no, seriously, OLD) Prodigy + Packard Bell restore CD hopes

[Joshie]

This is a long shot, but I'm working on something with some folks and the more resources at hand, the better, right? But what I'm looking for is any and all media pertaining to the classic Prodigy online service. Stuff like img files of the sign-up diskettes would be amazing, but I'm not too hopeful about that.

More importantly, I have reason to suspect old Packard Bell Master CDs (or 'Multimedia Master CDs) that contained the PB Navigator 3.x (16-bit era) had demo videos/binaries as marketing for classic Prodigy. My current quest is to get my hands on those! Half of us who've been online since the BBS era have owned at least one Packard Bell, right? I've done the torrent route, and managed to find one lone PB Master CD torrent, which has been locked at 61% for probably a year and a half. So no luck there. I've been polling friends as I go, and letting my interest be known, but why not hit NeoWin while I'm at it? No doubt there are plenty of folk here who've been around and have a room of old systems they never got around to selling/recycling/igniting, and old media with them (hey, I've got old genuine DOS Apogee shareware floppies).

Asking for rips of the master CDs themselves isn't what I'm doing, since they contain full installs of Windows 3.1, and despite the age of the OS, MS hasn't thrown it to the wild yet so it still counts as piracy (lol). But if there's some way to get at those demo files, and if anyone here finds a moment of boredom to have a peek, I will be profoundly indebted.

Thanks--

[c3ntury]

We don't go by NeoWin anymore, it's just Neowin.

Okay, I had a quick search around my step-dad's old equipment.. nothing, also did a quick torrent search, legal ones only though and still nothing. I remember they still offer Windows 3.1 downloads on a MSDN subscription though I think. I think your next step could be posting on Cragislist, looking on eBay, etc. etc.

Good luck mate :)

[Xenomorph]

I forget the model, but I had a 1994 Packard Bell system.

486 SX2 50 MHz

4 Megs RAM

Cirrus Logic 1 MB PCI video (onboard)

340 Meg HDD

DOS 6.2 w/ Windows for Workgroups 3.11

2400 bps Data, 9600 bps Fax modem

Aztech Sound Galaxy 16 ISA sound card + 2X CD-ROM

Bundled software included Packard Bell Navigator, Microsoft Works, Prodigy, and some other crap (MEGARACE!).

The computer, monitor, and mouse are all LONG gone... But I still have all the CDs and manuals. Somewhere. It could take me a long time to find all that stuff. It's packed away in boxes.

Wait ... what are you looking for again? Promotional material for Prodigy? Why?

[neufuse Veteran]

Can we ask why exactly you want the old Prodigy software?

[Joshie]

Xenomorph: Yeah I'm not asking for anyone to rip their basement up over this. Heck, I know I have all kinds of old computer stuff in my basement somewhere, but it'd take me hours to find it all. If you somehow stumble across it in the near future (near enough that this post is still relevant) though, awesomes.

neufuse: Hrmm, well, I guess you could say we're playing with old online services and seeing if their UI's could be tweaked into something touch-/handheld-friendly, and P* is the only one nobody seems to have extensive captures of. I've got a handful of caps of the Highlights page, web browser, BBs and Windows email program, but otherwise Prodigy seems to have been reduced to a bundle of memories. But a marketing demo? That might be loaded with images of the service.

We recently realized how similar portal apps like Yahoo/Bing are to the old services (P*, CIM, AOL). It's not all that surprising, I guess, since Yahoo et al spent the early years of the web trying to translate the online service experience to web pages, and smartphone apps are just translating the web services into standalone software again.

/oops at the Neowin typo, hehe

[PNWDweller]

Thanks to your asking, It made me dig out my old eMachine restore CD and mess with it to get it installed in Virtualbox. No Prodigy on that darnit! Thing runs friggin slow in virtualization too! LOL

Wikipedia has an interesting article on it and says that apparently it is still alive and well in Mexico. (Or at least that is what they put in there)

[Joshie]

Ohh yeah, Mexico's Prodigy is pure ISP, almost entirely like Prodigy Internet in the States. Kind of amazing that the brand stayed so strong down there, considering it's little more than at&t's old toy. The proprietary online service was pretty neat stuff back in the DOS days though, and I think it was the first one to offer web access (of the proprietary services, such as CIM and AOL). They also kicked off the instant messaging trend, provided major advances in discussion board concepts, and a few other things. What's most amusing at this point, though, is loading up a screenshot of Prodigy Highlights (their 'welcome' screen after signing in, pretty much) and putting it next to Google News and seeing the striking similarities.

[Marshall Veteran]

I have an old Packard Bell tower in my basement loaded with Windows 95. I could copy the prodigy files ( and any others you needed) off of it.

[ZimsWhims]

I have a few old Prodigy Internet CDs. I have 4 of them. All are the orginal disks.

1. V1.1 for Macintosh
   
2. V1.05 for Macintosh
   
3. 2 of V3.o for Macintosh with Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.10a
   

I may not check here often so if you are interested please email me. Thanks.