GEnie
GEnie (General Electric Network for Information Exchange) was a popular online community and file-sharing service that operated from October 1985 through the end of 1999. It gave users the opportunity to participate in many different special-interest communities ("RoundTables"), each of which had some mix of bulletin boards, file libraries, real-time conferences, live chats, newsletters, and more.
Apple II RoundTable
The Apple II RoundTable (or A2 RT) was GEnie's community for Apple II users and was an important channel for Eamon-related information and software. The A2 RT mainly consisted of the following services:
Bulletin Board
The Apple II RoundTable's bulletin board system (A2 BB) was where participants could share posts on a range of subjects. In October 1989 sysop Chet Day set up a category (#16) dedicated to discussions about Eamon, which attracted at least 369 posts across 12 topics.
Software Library
The repository included more than 450 Eamon-related files, and nearly 15,000 files overall.
Real-Time Conferences
Real-Time Conferences (RTCs) were moderated online chats, each featuring a special guest who would discuss a topic of interest and take questions from other RoundTable members. An RTC with Tom Zuchowski was held in December 1989.
Newsletters
GEnieLamp A2 was the monthly newsletter of the GEnie Apple II Roundtable and ran for a total of 67 issues from April 1992 to October 1997.
In adventures
In Frank Black's adventure The Heart of Gold, Ford Prefect's laptop connects to an online service named "DJinni", a reference to the real-world GEnie.
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