DialUp95 – A 90s inspired nostalgia hit(dialup95.com)
43 pointsby robputt3 hours ago20 comments
  • mmaunder7 minutes ago
    So good. But 31kbps? Wow. You guys were spoilt. 28.8 is the best we got and on a very good day when the lines were nice and dry. I think he even nailed the link upgrade sound on the modem.
    • robputt5 minutes ago
      My first interaction with the internet was an old Windows 3.1 machine with 14.4kbps modem, then we upgraded to a Windows 95 machine with 28.8kbps and later we swapped out the ISA modem for a PCI 56kbps modem. Then ADSL came along and the rest is history. Presumably the modem in this example is a 33.6kbps V.34 modem which had a slightly lower sync negotiated due to a poor line.
  • gus_massaan hour ago
    Somewhat related: Old post "The sound of the dialup, pictured" https://www.windytan.com/2012/11/the-sound-of-dialup-picture... (Biggest HN discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15635144 | 675 points | Nov 2017 | 108 comments, and a few more discussions in https://hn.algolia.com/?query=The%20sound%20of%20the%20dialu... )
  • weinzierl40 minutes ago
    After getting excited that you could change the phone number the fact that it did not beep it was a little let down. I wonder if the shown default number matches the number in the audio at all?

    Anyways, cool project and I like the easy to remember domain.

  • acidburnNSA23 minutes ago
    Very nice!

    Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't the lights of the icon computers light up for transmitting and receiving?

  • adontz2 hours ago
    Oh, nostalgia. I had a US Robotics 56K modem, which produced two bell-alike sounds during handshake. It was cool. I search for that specific sounds for years and cannot find.
    • hackernudesan hour ago
      https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xalTFH5ht-k&t=99

      This matches my memory of 56k dialup with the two BONGs.

      And now I get to share my favorite AT command. M0 could mute the modem! M1 was quieter than the default. I will never understand why those weren't more common! Used like: ATM0DT

      • vardump26 minutes ago
        I never wanted to mute, because with sound you could hear a bad connection early and retry faster.
    • BuildTheRobotsan hour ago
      I've also been searching for that double-bong for years.

      Last time I asked, user hackmiester pointed me to https://goughlui.com/2016/05/03/project-the-definitive-colle...

      The "Texas Instruments DSP based Modems" linking to USR-Sportster-bong-bong.wav is pretty close to what I remember.

      edit: hackernudes reply is perfect. The youtube auto generated subtitles are pleasing too.

    • flkiwi38 minutes ago
      Me, before clicking: Man, I remember I had this USR modem that did this weird BONG sound during handshake. I wonder if anyone else in the comments remembers that.

      Comments: YUP.

  • brepppan hour ago
    Amazing, however when I changed the number I expected an audio recording of some guy answering in the middle of the night over a modem negotiation sound
  • drsalt18 minutes ago
    i don't know if its the mandela effect but the sound is not accurate.
    • robputt15 minutes ago
      I think it varied by modem model and maybe also the type of telephony system in your country. This sounds faithful to what I used to hear in the UK.
    • atmanactive12 minutes ago
      Sounds totally accurate to me.
  • stack_frameran hour ago
    The AOL version missed an opportunity: After connecting it should have said, "You've got mail!"
    • robputtan hour ago
      It does, maybe try again, the MP3 may have failed to load in.
    • edm0nd42 minutes ago
      it 100% does already
  • anta402 hours ago
    Ah good old dial up days in early 2000s. Browsing means the phone cannot be used for calling.

    :)

  • therealmarv2 hours ago
    it felt suddenly expensive to be online again...
    • robputt2 hours ago
      For me it brings back a time when the internet felt more personable. Everything these days is boring, Facebook profiles, Tiktoks and Instagrams all look the same. We need the personal days back where people put their heart and soul into building their geocities page. Where you never knew what you'd find next when you press the next link on that web ring.
      • reactordev2 hours ago
        Seconded. Blogs are great but the old school blogs were David vs Goliath. I remember how much fun it was to cycle through my web ring and see all the extremely creative sites. Some flash, some just clever JavaScript, none of it used jquery or react or components. In fact, one was a giant anchor area image divided up into sections (not sliced designs, one whole image! With target boxes for clickable regions).

        I still have my deviantart profile from the inevitable collapse into corporate. Web design took a turn for the smashing and now it all looks the same.

      • plagiaristan hour ago
        Everyone was still too cautious to type their credit card in or something. There was nothing to monetize. So, yeah, every website was someone's small passion project, with handwritten HTML.

        State of the art for discovery used to be browsing a (manually?) curated directory on Yahoo. Google appeared and was a mind-blowing sea change. That's probably the peak, Google's inception up until jackass SEO marketers appeared. During that window, search worked fantastically over content that was fun to read.

  • iberatoran hour ago
    i was expecting web browser after dialup :(
    • robputtan hour ago
      Sorry, maybe in V2
  • jannelammian hour ago
    I’ve tried to explain my kid how we went online back in the days. Need to show this to her.
    • RedShift1an hour ago
      About 15 years ago I gave some networking courses at a local education center, it was all young kids (18-20 years old). When I told them that the speed we got back in the day was 4 kilobytes per second (56k on a good day), they didn't believe me at all.
      • layer810 minutes ago
        I remember using a “high-speed” 14.4 kbps modem. I mean, these were thousands of bits per second, really insane. Faster than many LLMs.
  • blashyrk44 minutes ago
    Great

    Just needs a pulse dialing option ;)

  • c2xlZXB5Cg12 hours ago
    I need to press "Stop" before all images fully load
  • deadbabean hour ago
    Sucks that we don’t have these kind of little rituals today. Everything is just always on. This kind of thing sounds like you were blasting off into the future, your day was divided between offline and online, and this was you crossing the barrier to the next world.
  • randallan hour ago
    I wanted the AOL one to say "Welcome" before "you've got mail!" lol
  • nizbitan hour ago
    Guess I don’t have any mail :(
  • anthk2 hours ago
    https://theoldnet.com and https://protoweb.org, try their proxy on legacy machines and have fun travelling in time.

    Also: https://wiby.me

  • andrea763 hours ago
    This is a masterpiece
    • robputt2 hours ago
      Thank you :-)

      I am tempted to add additional OS / dialers.

  • fanatic2popean hour ago
    Now do minicom and pppd!