It's my hope they brought the individual who did this work in to help make the minimum changes necessary to accurately document the differences. These recreations are really quite nice.
I too was one of the Many who used Qmodem back in the day, and still do now on vintage stuff like bwann mentioned.
I had opportunity to work with John on a small consulting thing when I started and ISP back in the mid 90s, and I recall him being an incredibly bright and affable guy.
At the ONE BBSCON 1994 keynote and conference opening, there was an exercise where all sysops stood, and those running a BBS for less than a year sat down, then less than 2, and so on - until only Ward Christensen was left standing. I recall briefly meeting him, that he was humble, yet very proud of what BBSes had become. May he rest in peace.
I hope the Computer History Museum will consider an interactive exhibit of early online services someday when the Prodigy, AOL, CompuServe, and other service recreations are more complete.
I’ve spent about 3 years looking for it as part of the Prodigy Preservation Project, and I have found a substantial amount of archived corporate email and documentation surrounding the development of the service. Not even close to the volume they have here, though!
If you’re interested to read about it, I have been working on reverse engineering Prodigy. More detail at the following two links…