CompuServe Information Manager
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 ("DOSCIM"), Microsoft Windows ("WinCIM"), Macintosh ("MacCIM"), and OS/2 ("CIM for OS/2") 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.[1]
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 (CompuServe for Windows 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 CompuServe branded versions of the AOL client software known as CompuServe 2000 and CompuServe 7 and its protocols as a way to access the service. However, it remained possible to connect to WinCIM via HMI, which became known as the "CompuServe Classic" service.