{"id":1232,"date":"2017-03-09T11:09:14","date_gmt":"2017-03-09T16:09:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/?p=1232"},"modified":"2017-06-08T14:31:10","modified_gmt":"2017-06-08T19:31:10","slug":"retro-scan-worldsaway-mousepad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/archives\/1232\/retro-scan-worldsaway-mousepad","title":{"rendered":"[ Retro Scan ]<\/span> WorldsAway Mousepad"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"CompuServe<\/a>Echoes of Ancient Technicolor Greece<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Back in 1995, CompuServe and Fujitsu launched a graphical online chat world called WorldsAway. I used it from the very start (at least within a month of the launch, I think), and quickly became enveloped in the beautifully illustrated world and the sense of community it fostered.<\/p>\n

I’ve written in-depth about WorldsAway<\/em> before — both on VC&G<\/em> in a previous Retro Scan<\/a> (for its first print ad) and in a “This Old Tech” column on PCWorld<\/a> back in 2015.<\/p>\n

Not long after the WA<\/em> launch in 1995, Fujitsu held a contest on CompuServe that was simple to enter — you had to send an email or answer a short survey (forgot what it was exactly). Lucky for me, I won the contest, and I received a really cool package of WorldsAway<\/em>-branded swag. I’ll try to remember everything: a sweatshirt, a pen, a clear acrylic coffee mug, a keychain flashlight, and the mousepad you see here.<\/p>\n

The coolest thing about this mousepad is that it shows an illustrated overhead map of the Dreamscape\/Kymer\/whatever it was called as Fujitsu staff originally designed it. It stayed within its Greco-Roman-inspired theme. When WorldAway<\/em> launched, only a handful of these locales were accessible — I think it wasn’t until 2000 or so that all of them were actually completed and opened to WA<\/em> users (although I don’t really remember the Theatre opening up, but I quit in 2001).<\/p>\n

Speaking of mousepads, while they were essential in the days of rolling-ball mice (some nice mouse history I wrote here<\/a>), they are technically optional with today’s optical mice. But I still use one on my desk to provide a uniform surface for my Microsoft optical mouse.<\/p>\n

[ From Fujitsu Cultural Technologies WorldsAway Mousepad, 1995 ]<\/em><\/center><\/p>\n

Discussion Topic:<\/strong> Let’s talk about mousepads. When was the last time you used one?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Echoes of Ancient Technicolor Greece Back in 1995, CompuServe and Fujitsu launched a graphical online chat world called WorldsAway. I used it from the very start (at least within a month of the launch, I think), and quickly became enveloped in the beautifully illustrated world and the sense of community it fostered. I’ve written in-depth […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,7,13,35,27,26,9,10],"tags":[151,957,1309,1424,1232,1465,60,1466,1310],"class_list":["post-1232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bbs-history","category-computer-info-and-history","category-video-game-info-and-history","category-internet-history","category-regular_features","category-retro-scan-of-the-week","category-retrogaming","category-computers","tag-151","tag-fujitsu","tag-fujitsu-cultural-technologies","tag-merchandise","tag-online-history","tag-online-worlds","tag-retro-scan","tag-swag","tag-worldsaway"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1232"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1232\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1289,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1232\/revisions\/1289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}