“Sierra’s On-Line”?

[CharonPDX]

In going through a bunch of Sierra disks in my vintage computing collection, I found a stack that I must have acquired from someone else, as it has games I know weren’t mine back when they were new. Manhunter, Silpheed, The Black Cauldron (I had that on Apple II, not DOS.) But also a 2-disk set of disks labeled “Sierra’s On-Line” That’s it.

The entirety of the label is:

SIERRA’S ON-LINE
MS-DOS

DISK 1 of 2
INSTALL/DRIVERS
Ver. #89.96.22A

and DISK 2 “ARCHIVE GUIDE” – sadly, this disk is corrupt (makes a squeaking sound, so almost certainly physically bad.)

Knowing the name of the company at the time was “Sierra On-Line”, this confused me. It didn’t list a game name. So… Broke out my 486, installed it, and…….. It’s a graphics-mode terminal program. ??

I’m guessing some sort of predecessor to TSN/INN? Was this an app to dial in to a Sierra server where you could download info sheets with graphics or something? (The only reason I can think of to have it run in graphics mode – I had to pick my graphics card during setup (Hercules, CGA, Tandy, EGA, MCGA, VGA.) But at least in the interface I could muck around in, there was no obvious graphical elements other than slight “MS-DOS Shell style” graphics-mode boxes menu at the top.

[SAGAR KALE]

Dear Sierra Technical Help,

I need some help in starting up some of my games. The games work in Win95/98 , but not win 10.One Quest Of Glory 1, NASCAR Racing, and racing games like F12000 and F12001 . I do not have a win 95/98 computer. BUT I DO HAVE WIN 7.wILL ANY OF THESE GAMES WORK ON PS3/PS4/XBOX360.wELL IF YOU KNOW PLEASE DO KNOW , please do write me. Well, if you can answer my question that would be great. I BOUGHT THESE GAMES THRU YOUR COMPANY SIERRA, CAN YOU PLEASE HLEP ME OUT? MY EMAIL ADDRESS IS […], AND MY NAME IS […]

THANKS,
SAGAR

[Ken Williams]

Greetings Sagar:

I apologize, but I can’t help you. I sold Sierra over 25 years ago and am not even sure who owns it these days. Activision, I think?

[Talking Bear]

Terminal programs were used for calling BBSes, or services like CompuServe and BIX before they had their own client apps. It controlled the modem and could handle file download or upload. That particular product is pretty rare; you should try to preserve the working disk contents.

In that time, freeware or shareware programs were widely used, so the Sierra’s Online product had an challenge at the $70 price. I’m sure they figured it would be very tech support intensive, as there was usually a steep learning curve, and the potential for high phone or online service bills.

The psuedo-GUI was probably the Tandy DeskMate interface. It gets shelf space at Radio Shack. 🙂

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