Jeeves whiz

Jeeves, I am sorry, we forgot about you, and now you are gone!

Back in the wacky 90s, when we wanted to find out the capital of Brazil, or when the next Die Hard movie was coming out, or how many cups of sugar to add to a recipe, we hooked up the computer and Asked Jeeves, the online butler and keeper of all information.

Jeeves, and his home, Ask.com, are now shuttered forever. Things come and go in the world of commerce, and to be honest, most of us forgot ever going to Jeeves, since Google, and to a lesser degree, Yahoo, came along.

“To you — the millions of users who turned to us for answers in a rapidly changing world — thank you for your endless curiosity, your loyalty, and your trust,” the company said in a notice posted on its now-defunct website.

Remember him?

It was 1996 when the screens first lit up with a character that could help us find answers. Jeeves was a character in a series of books by P. G. Wodehouse. David Warthen and Garrett Gruener were a couple of early-PC days smart guys. They saw a need for what came to be called a "search engine," and they developed Jeeves for us.

I think I can remember switching over to Google because it felt like giving up the toy tools we all had to fix things - wee screwdrivers, tiny tack hammers - for real professional gear.  Google does us fine, but I am sitting here wondering if Jeeves's feelings were hurt when we abandoned him....