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AOL Dial-Up Internet Service to End After 34 Years
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Latest census estimates is that 150k Americans still us dial up but AOL didn’t report how many of those are their customers.
Some are. I have a lot of relatives that in rural areas, but many of them live in heavily wooded areas and can't get a reliable signal. It doesn't work if you have virtually no view of the open sky.
If you had lived near us, you would have seen internet about 6 years earlier. Sometime around 1988 or 1989, a neighbor had a cradle modem. You would dial the number on the phone, listen for the tone, then place the receiver on a cradle so it could communicate with the other end. If you bumped the receiver or made too much noise, it would pick that up and interfere with the communication. Everything was text based BBS. The PCs then used cassette tape to boot. You played the cassette into the PC so it could load the OS each time. Well before hard drives were common in home PCs.We started using this in 1995 or 1996. Someday it was just brought home by my stepfather who always liked the latest tech stuff.
Nobody I knew had Internet before us or was even talking about it. But a friend's father used BTX on his TV before there really was Internet he also had CompuServe but not sure if before we used AOL.
There only was AOL, CompuServe, T-Online and MSN. Any of those needed its own client. CompuServe somehow existed already forever. The other three started in 1995.
We already had ISDN with 64Kbit/s because I always was blocking the phone line before, for a short time we got two lines but then ISDN that included two lines was cheaper I think.
But I once discovered I didn't need to use that AOL software. When I was logged in to AOL I could run any browser outside that environment.
Netscape Navigator (later Communicator) that is now Firefox was my first browser. If you don't wanted that bloated AOL software running in the background, there was a dialer that I think was even integrated in Windows 95 and simply called the AOL number, not sure how I discovered that one.
At first Netscape was implemented as AOL browser but they changed very quickly to Internet Explorer. Not sure why but I already hated it from the beginning and never in my whole life used it as main browser.
There was an article that reminded me of those times lately, were I already wrote this... I mostly used FidoNet in the Crosspoint (XP) DOS client because you dialed to a local BBS (Bulletin Board System), we called it just Mailbox.
Just for receiving and sending new messages. That was much cheaper than paying AOL per month + per minute in addition to the phone costs that came on top per minute and month.
It was like a forum with reading the boards you subscribed to and private messages offline. Then replied to everything and sent the answers all at once with a "poll". Usually this was only two under one minute calls per day, sometimes more often if you waited for an urgent answer.
When we finally got an unlimited data/calls plan in 1998 or so, Napster was running almost 24/7. And I was blocking both lines the whole day, on the phone and Internet. My stepfather always got angry, especially when I used a 30m ISDN cable from the living room to my room upstairs. 🙈 Funny times.
And of course I used the AOL messenger that was included in the AOL software and later became also separate and was renamed to AIM. My second messenger then was ICQ, but I always kept both. Later there was Yahoo Messenger and MSN Messenger and Windows Live Messenger everyone liked both more than AIM and ICQ but couldn't they couldn't decide which one to use, so I just ran all of them, I also couldn't decide.
I also used Fido much longer and later switched to IRC for chatting with my best friends. They were a little nerdy. I learned very much from my best friend und just by myself already in MS DOS 3.1 on my 80186 with 6 MHz. I even used that one when I was 6 years old. Sometimes it was brought home by my stepfather, when he had to work on the weekend and when finished his work, I was allowed to play some games that somehow got on it an there were always a few more.
Later I learned this CPU was rarely used and I even had two of them but I only used the one with the 20MB HDD the other one only had 12MB. Now both are gone. I iwish I kept at least one of them, but they got trashed.
Otherwise they had been identical. With 640KB RAM and a 360KB 5.25" floppy drive. I even upgraded it with a Soundblaster 2.0, ISDN card and an external SyQuest EZ Drive with 130MB hard drive disks in a plastic case. Networking was only possible with serial or parallel cable from one PC to another and extremely slow.
I always wanted a color display with at least EGA graphics. But it only had CGA 4 color with a monochrome green on orange monitor and nobody new were I could get anything better for that old PC. I think there were even 8-bit VGA cards. But where to search without Internet? I only knew a guy that repaired computers and asked him for parts, but he didn't have any and ordering them wasn't worth it for a teenager, especially with a mew monitor.
My best friend already owned a 486 when I still was using that 186, but before he "only" had a C64 and I at first knew more about PCs.
I don't think I used Internet on that 186 PC, only FidoNet. I got a 386 DX 33 after a few years and the next one was a 486 DX/2 66 with a Cyrix CPU, that was my first really new PC and I got in in parts to build it on my own.
I also remember those coaxial network cards that had been used before Ethernet was widespread and we used Novell Netware in DOS to play games together. It always was an adventure to create a working LAN with those.
Why am I writing so much?Maybe because I still live in the good old times before I got sick without much of a real life...
Goodbye!
I worked for one of the international joint ventures in the 1990's... fun fact, remember "Internet Explorer by AOL"? The AOL installer would re-brand a users Internet Explorer and users HATED it. Anyway, we got so many complaints we had to make a tool to remove the branding if someone complained. Internal codename: unf**k.exe I'll write a book one day...
I worked for one of the international joint ventures in the 1990's... fun fact, remember "Internet Explorer by AOL"? The AOL installer would re-brand a users Internet Explorer and users HATED it. Anyway, we got so many complaints we had to make a tool to remove the branding if someone complained. Internal codename: unf**k.exe
I'll write a book one day...
Still using my AOL email account from 1993. Glad that’s not going away (yet)
I'll always remember the fun I had gaming with friends over dial-up. One time, and this is 100% true, we all wen--- *mom picks up phone*
According to the FCC, around 250,000 households still use dial-up. Probably for a variety of reasons. Mostly elderly and set in their ways, some who have zero cellular options, satellite is too expensive
Well, yes, that's probably why it's being dropped & why 99% of the reaction is nostalgia rather than "oh no!!!".
However, the web is not the internet. There's still POP/IMAP/whatever-AOL-mail-used, text-based, email. 100% better than nothing if you don't have any faster option (or the $$$ for satellite).
And on October 1, it will be sold and used for one of those "Potential SPAM" auto-dialers.
Only 1600 hours? An old friend of mine collected as many of those CDs as he could, so that he could use them as coasters during parties. I'm sure he wasn't the only person who used them that way, but it seemed quite funny to us at the time.
Not, technically, the internet, although in the 1980s you'd have needed to be in a University, military or government establishment, or some businesses to get the real internet.
In the early 90s, I was working at a university and could dial-in from home on my Sportster modem, initially by running the veritable KA9Q TCP/IP software (there's a blast from the past...)
Here in the UK, Demon Internet started up in 1992 offering £10/month dial-up internet, which started to popularise the internet outside of institutions (at least for the geek market).
As a side note, Apple is responsible for AOL. When they decided to create an end user version of the inhouse/developer version of AppleInk that ran on GE's GEIS, they worked Quantum Computer Serviceswho developed a similar system for the CommodorLi 64 to develop an end user version and used the AppleLink brand for the service. I ran it on my ][gs during beta test and still have my mug and t-shirt. The beta didn't really give you the full ApplLink, and the developer, Steve Case, and Apple relased the software as America OnLine.
AppleLink was also used for the first email from space, on STE-43 using a Mac Portable.
Thus Apple is responsible for Eternal September.
We used those on remote terminals in college way before then. At the end of the term, if you had at least .01 cent in your account (We were given accounts with use limits, although the profs would up them for you if needed), you could log on and stay logged on as long as you didn't get connected. We spent many hours playing computer games and going through miles of printer paper that way; and are huge negative balances reset at the start of the term to the standard amount.
Later we had a video terminal and acoustic coupler that let us do the same thing without paper.
I guess it depends on what you mean by the internet, the WWW or the backbone that carries the traffic.
Much of what we consider today as the internet simply did not exist then, but things like USENet functioned in some similar ways; and gave use much terminology such as spam, flame, and troll.
DARPANet was definitely closed, but you could email, for example, without a DARPANet or other type of account. I was sending emails using bang paths as early as 1980. In some ways the old bang path emails was like the ham radio operator talking to someone thousands of miles away; it was simply amazing you could actually do that even if the conversation was just "Hi, how are you?'
AppleLink was also used for the first email from space, on STE-43 using a Mac Portable.
Thus Apple is responsible for Eternal September.
We used those on remote terminals in college way before then. At the end of the term, if you had at least .01 cent in your account (We were given accounts with use limits, although the profs would up them for you if needed), you could log on and stay logged on as long as you didn't get connected. We spent many hours playing computer games and going through miles of printer paper that way; and are huge negative balances reset at the start of the term to the standard amount.
Later we had a video terminal and acoustic coupler that let us do the same thing without paper.
I guess it depends on what you mean by the internet, the WWW or the backbone that carries the traffic.
Much of what we consider today as the internet simply did not exist then, but things like USENet functioned in some similar ways; and gave use much terminology such as spam, flame, and troll.
DARPANet was definitely closed, but you could email, for example, without a DARPANet or other type of account. I was sending emails using bang paths as early as 1980. In some ways the old bang path emails was like the ham radio operator talking to someone thousands of miles away; it was simply amazing you could actually do that even if the conversation was just "Hi, how are you?'
My kids probably won't know what that sound means if I played it to them. They don't know the pain we had to go through getting on the internet.
So sad. I grew up with AOL. I used the floppy disks found in magazines and stores to get online for free. Otherwise it was too much money. The free minutes would expire and you'd have to create a new screen name.
That's how AOL grew. It was all temporary free accounts. 1% of the users were actually paying for the minutes just to keep their screen names.
I loved the service. I made tons of friends on the chat rooms. We had local weekly get togethers and even met up in different cities all over the country.
Brings a tear to my eye 🥲
That's how AOL grew. It was all temporary free accounts. 1% of the users were actually paying for the minutes just to keep their screen names.
I loved the service. I made tons of friends on the chat rooms. We had local weekly get togethers and even met up in different cities all over the country.
Brings a tear to my eye 🥲
I had totally forgotten about Quantum Computer Services. Way back in the day, (maybe 35 years ago) I had a graduating student who came up to me and said “Hey Professor, you know about ‘computers’. Should I take this job there?” I said, “Sure!” Years later she became a VP at AOL and retired when she was 30 something and as a thank you, she rented out the entire House of Blues in Hollywood as a treat for my students and I. Best party ever.
Yeah, there were times when traffic was heavy that the dial-up tone went on and on and on...and you never did get on. There would probably be lots of stress if that happened now.
I acquired all the AOL cds I could find - working right down from Sears in the mall helped - tossed the discs and kept the nice 7mm thin clear cases which i still have a bunch of around here somewhere. It sucked when they started using the little metal tins instead!
Oh yes it’s Fall 1994 again!!!
AOL will officially discontinue its dial-up internet service on September 30, pulling the plug on an era that defined early internet access for millions of Americans.
The Yahoo-owned company announced the shutdown on its support website, stating: "AOL routinely evaluates its products and services and has decided to discontinue Dial-up Internet." The termination includes the AOL Dialer software and AOL Shield browser, both of which were optimized for older operating systems.
While dial-up may seem like ancient history, the service retained a surprisingly persistent user base. As noted by The Verge, a 2019 US census estimated that 265,000 Americans were still relying on dial-up connections. Many of those were likely in rural areas where broadband infrastructure remains limited.
AOL's dial-up service launched in 1991 and became synonymous with internet access throughout the 1990s, complete with the iconic "You've got mail!" greeting and that unforgettable connection sound.
Article Link: AOL Dial-Up Internet Service to End After 34 Years
