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From: carlson@gateway.mitre.org (Bruce Carlson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: information on PRODIGY
Message-ID: <51039@linus.UUCP>
Date: 21 Apr 89 16:11:41 GMT
References: <9292@mhuxu.UUCP>
Sender: news@linus.UUCP
Reply-To: carlson@gateway.mitre.org (Bruce Carlson)
Distribution: usa
Organization: The Mitre Corporation
Lines: 55

In article <9292@mhuxu.UUCP> skeeve@mhuxu.UUCP (79533-riley c) writes:
>I just got an ad yesterday for a service called PRODIGY.  It looks like it
>offers the same kind of services as Compuserve.  The major difference is
>the price: about $10 per month, with unlimited connect time for the month
>(I think) as opposed to $12.50 per connect hour for CIS.
>Does anyone have information on how good this really is?
>Chris Riley                         

I got an offer for 3 months of Prodigy free, so I can provide some input.
I don't have a compuserve account so I can't make a direct comparison.

The major limitations of Prodigy:

no file upload or download available

your screen is in graphics mode so you can't even print it out by turning
  your printer on; prodigy disables ctrl-prtsc
  you can only print if it is an option on the prodigy screen

all e-mail perishes after 14 days, whether you have read it or not
I don't think there is a bridge to any other e-mail

it is relatively slow because of the graphics screens; their update is
dependent on the modem baud rate and the part of the prodigy application
that is running on your PC; the system uses an IBM 3070(?) with
IBM series ones distributed to the remote locations, your screen may come
from the local series one or may come over a T1 from the mainframe; sreens
are supposed to update faster if there are more users because more of
the screens will have been downloaded and stored locally (at the series one)

there are no connections to large databases like Dialog or other
information services

there are advertisements on the bottom of almost every screen, this 
is one way they keep subscriber costs low

Some good points of Prodigy:

its cheap

some of the services are useful, airline reservation, accu-weather, etc.

one account services your whole family (up to 6) and each one has their
own USERID and profile

Synopsis:

it seems to be the cable tv of online services, which makes sense when
you consider its Videotex background; it is designed for the average
consumer, not the computer scientist/engineer

buy it for your kids or your spouse/SO that wants to play with
a computer information service, you can always keep using USENET

Bruce Carlson