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From: cb@tamarack12.timbuk (Chris Brewster)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Prodigy
Message-ID: <CB.91Mar21124826@tamarack12.timbuk>
Date: 21 Mar 91 20:01:16 GMT
Organization: pubs
Lines: 26


I just hooked up to Prodigy for the first time.  I have two kids and thought its
family orientation might be useful.  In fact, some of the material intended for
kids looks pretty good, but I find the service unsatisfactory over-all.

Prodigy is designed to be able to run ads and other graphics at any time or
location, so it's all in graphics mode.  And it has to be legible on systems
using even the earliest graphic standards, so bulletin boards and other text are
done in HUGE type at 40 characters/line, 16 lines/screen.  Even with a new 386,
the whole thing works very slowly.  Since you only get a little bit of text on a
screen, you have to page down frequently; then you run into the problem of
pausing as the system redraws the screen over and over (with a different ad on
EVERY screen!).

Prodigy's news service is a mediocre digest of material that's widely available
in other, better formats.  The bulletin boards are greatly inhibited in tone and
content, not just by the graphics-mode problem, but by apparently heavy-handed
and unpredictable censorship (not just of "bad words" and the like, but purely
at the censor's whim).  Compared with the freewheeling and diverse content of
Usenet, Prodigy feels like a straitjacket.  I'd be interested to hear other
people's experiences with, and opinions about, Prodigy.

Christopher Brewster
Cray Research Inc.
612: 683-5759
cb@timbuk.cray.com