AOL Chief Cases CompuServe HQ

COLUMBUS, Ohio.: In a real-time pep talk with CompuServe employees Tuesday, America Online's president Steve Case promised that no jobs would be deleted as his company takes over theirs. Case surprised a crowd of hundreds of workers at their corporate offices by admitting that the sole reason he got into the online business was because he became addicted to CompuServe's primitive teletext terminal games in the late 1970s, according to CompuServe insiders. Case said he continues to admire CompuServe's technical knowledge, even joking about AOL's busy signal problems. Even more uplifting for CompuServe workers, Case promised a huge cash infusion that would include making CompuServe's marketing efforts as aggressive as America Online's. Most employees left the meeting upbeat after a year of bad morale with constant rumors of an imminent takeover or collapse.