http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1995-06-02/entertainment/9506020372_1_compuserve-on-line-free-forums Chicago Tribune, "Cyberspace" section June 2, 1995 "Compuserve Shovels In More Freebie Sites" by Eric Gwinn Last month's CompuServe bill got you down? While your beleaguered checking account recovers from your worldwide on-line travels, spend a month taking advantage of the 1,200 free forums, publications and services CompuServe includes in your $9.95-a-month fee. In the last couple of months, CompuServe has added to its number of free services. You can use them to plan your retirement, look for a new job, help your daughter finish her homework, figure out what's causing your tennis elbow and keep up with news from around the world. And when you're ready to play, you can test your movie-star IQ or immerse yourself in a text-based adventure game. Don't forget that chatting by e-mail is free. For a menu of CompuServe's free offerings, GO BASIC. Forums, games, publications and events are some of the groupings you're about to explore. Choose Member Assistance. That takes you to a new screen, where you can check CompuServe's rates and pricing, look at your billing information (ouch!), search CompuServe for a shareware program for Windows or look up a friend's C-Serve address. One of my favorite areas is What's New/Special Events/Contests, which resembles a weekly newsletter. If you choose What's New, you'll see who's scheduled to be in what forum this week. Or elect Specials/Contests to see how you can win free on-line time. A recent promotion by a computer manufacturer offered $100 of connect time if you bought a PC notebook from the company. One other company was offering $25 of connect time for a pair of sunglasses. Notice at the bottom of the window you have up: It says CIS:SPE-1, letting you know that you could jump directly to this page from anywhere in CompuServe by choosing GO SPE-1. If you wanted to save this window so you can look at it when you're off-line, you can use the Save or Save As command from the file menu. Just for the fun of it, GO BASICCOM to begin your search for a new job in another city. (You also can get here by choosing GO BASIC and double clicking on the communications menu option.) Pick the CompuServe Classified section and the rest is easy, with job listings sorted out by region. You can get details on a company by using Hoover's Co. Database or Basic Company Snapshot. Enter GO BASICMONEY or GO BASIC, then choose Stock Quotes and Personal Finance. Hoover's company Database and Basic Co. Snapshot give you a look at a company's financial standing and its bosses. The information isn't as up to date as the extended-service versions of of these free services are, but you get what you pay for. Using Money magazine's FundWatch (GO BASICMONEY) lets you analyze 1900 mutual funds. Now that you've done your homework, you can use the free services to help your child do hers. GO BASICED (or GO BASIC, then choose Education/Reference) for an on-line reference center that beats schlepping to the library. There's the Academic American Encyclopedia, American Heritage Dictionary and a running account of current events. And that's the tip of the iceberg. There's even access to Peterson's guide to U.S. colleges and universities. When your brain no longer has room to remember the Pythagorean theorem, you know it's time to play on-line trivia. Who cares about squares and hypotenuses and right triangles? It's much more relevant to know that Elton John's real name is Reginald Dwight. Enter GO BASICGAMES to be confronted by the Science Trivia Quiz, the ShowBizQuiz or the Grolier Whiz Quiz, which has topics ranging from history to art and architecture and beyond. Along with the trivia quizzes are text-based games such as Hangman, and absorbing adventures CastleQuest, BlackDragon, Classic Adventure and Enhanced Adventure. The games are modeled after Classic Adventure, the granddaddy of them all. Your world is spelled out for you on-screen, and just as in the heyday of radio, you get to create the colors and textures of your surroundings. But unlike radio or TV, in these adventure games, you type in simple commands to walk, look at objects, pick them up and use them to kill a dragon, unlock or door or defeat a spell. Similar adventures are all the rage on the Internet. When you're done conquering evil, you can come back to Earth with a few articles from People magazine and Consumer Reports. Use your computer to make airline, hotel and rental car reservations--sometimes, you even find flights and fares that travel agents and airline customer service representatives didn't tell you about. Is it a good day to travel? Check your biorhythm chart. Biorhythms work off the theory that from the moment you are born, you go through emotional, physical and mental cycles that have peaks and valleys. Print out your chart for the month. Compare it to your significant other's. When's a good time to tell him or her about that huge CompuServe bill? If no time is a good time, it may be high time to book the next flight outta here. ---------- This week's column was written by Eric Gwinn. He can be reached via CompuServe at 71044,25.