WinCIM

CompuServe Information Manager (CIM) was CompuServe Information Service's client software. The program provided a GUI front end to the text-based CompuServe service that was at the time accessed using a standard terminal program with alphanumerical shortcuts.

Issued at the same time as the GUI-only America Online began to grow in popularity, CIM was available for MS-DOS, Microsoft Windows ("WinCIM"), Macintosh ("MacCIM"), and OS/2 ("OS/2-CIM") and allowed access to CompuServe's features, such as its forums, chat, e-mail, and messaging facilities; these continued to be accessible via standard communications software using alphanumeric shortcuts. The first versions were released in around 1990. Version 2.0.1, released in 1994, included a version of the Mosaic web browser.http://www.smartcomputing.com/editorial/article.asp?article=articles/archive/guideinternet97/3net09/3net09.asp&guid=

Later, CompuServe switched parts of its service over to a new binary protocol called HMI, or Host Micro Interface, which was more of a binary machine protocol and was not usable directly via a telnet client like the old text based interface, thus requiring the use of specialised client software like CIM. Version 3.0, in 1997, was intended to compete head-on with AOL, and was released amid an advertising campaign in which CompuServe was briefly re-branded as "CSi".

After CompuServe was purchased by AOL in 1998, CompuServe began providing the AOL client software and its protocols as a way to access the service, however it continued to remain possible to connect to WinCIM via HMI, which became known as the "CompuServe Classic" service.

Other CompuServe client programs:

• TapCIS
• OzWin
• NavCIS
• ForCIS