Old people everywhere:
“Why is there an extra $19.99 in my account every month?”
I’m 100% certain that’s why AOL dialup still “existed”. Just charging old people for a service that doesn’t get used. And now so many people have fallen off over the years that it’s no longer profitable to keep the “service” going.
I know they used to scam people. Worled for Bell South. Had customer call needed me to setup his internet so that the 40 dollars he was paying AOL would work. After bit of probing, I figured out that Bell South was going charge him 80 a month for was the actual internet. All he was paying AOL 40 for was to use their home screen.
I ended up convincing him that he didn’t need pay AOL a dime. That we would provide the internet home screen included.
So wouldn’t surprise me at all if they were charging people for dailup they weren’t using. Also this said thay were shutting down the program, not stop charging people.
TIL dail up is still a thing fucking crazy.
To be fair, I have rural family in areas where dial up is still their only internet option.
I would think DSL/ADSL should be available there, it’s the same infrastructure and doesn’t hog the phone line while using internet, so you can call and browse at the same time.
Dslhas a signal strength limit that requires stations every so many linear meters of line. I forget what that is (and the actual terms) but I did dsl tech support once upon a time. If they don’t build one of those stations every like 1.5km or whatever it is, there is no dsl and they’re not doing it to support 1-5 people paying them $40 or whatever a month
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For one of them, yes, but it costs more than they want to pay.
For the other…sort of yes, but it goes out 50%-70% of the day for some dumb reason I’ve yet to figure out. The company has no plans to fix/improve it…and they’re the same company offering the dialup backup.
I think a few others still offer dialup if they need it, bit idk how it works. I guess Amy dialup provider can work as long as you have a landline.
It will probably still be a pain in the ass to cancel.
Nooooooooo! How will I connect my Dreamcast to the internet now? 😩
Nooooooooo! How will I connect my Dreamcast to the internet now? 😩
I know you’re being sarcastic, but I can give you an actual answer from when I was a Dreamcast owner.
One of the wonderful things about the Dreamcast modem is that you can configure it skip dial tone detection. You can them take an old telephone line (the kind you’d plug into the wall, then to the modem), cut it in half and a couple of resistors in specific places. You take that modified cable and plug one end into your Dreamcast, then the other into a modem in PC. You then set up Dial up routing software on your PC. There’s a lite version built into Windows 98 if my memory is correct (Dial up networking services Server). Initiate the Dreamcast to dial (it doesn’t matter what phone number). The PC answers (you hear the dial up handshake squaking), and your Dreamcast is online! You can use the Dreamcast browser or online Dreamcast games like Timesplitters. If you did this long enough ago you could also play the MMOs like Phantasy Star Online.
take an old telephone line, cut it in half and a couple of resistors in specific places. You take that modified cable…
Ha! Sorry, I didn’t mean to be intentionally vague. I didn’t think people would actually care about doing this today. Here’s complete steps for you to do it yourself. I posted from memory from doing this myself 25 years ago or so. I had to go look up the actual schematic and found someone else did a slightly more modern take on the software side too. The cable is still the same basic design premise to offer a line voltage to the modems I used way back when.
I was using a higher value capacitor (because I was poor and using scrap parts) which also forced me to put a 100 Ohm resistor in series on the output to get good consistent connections. If you can get exact values, use the ones pictured in that parts list instead of my hack job.
If you like this era of gaming you might enjoy [email protected]
Hah, sorry, I was just kidding, but I do love to see people on this platform doing the legwork (and I try to do the same myself) – it makes it so markedly different to most places on the web. Respect.
There was an Ethernet adapter for them
The broadband modem only works on Japanese Dreamcast models tho, IIRC.
It works on all of them. It’s just prohibitively expensive to acquire one. A better setup is just a raspberry pi configured to act as an intermediary service provider.
The main problem is the game had to support it, and only a handful of games support the broadband adapter.
If you’re serious about it, you can try to snag a DreamPi kit from https://dreamcastlive.net/shop/
They also organize game nights and maintain a list of playable games and game server software.
Whoever is using dialup in 2025… your tenacity is admirable.
I know someone who’s only way they curbed their Internet gambling addiction was by switching to dial up. They still needed internet for work email and social stuff, so going completely offline wasn’t an option. He would have to drag his computer to other people’s houses to do software updates because he couldn’t figure out how to use a slim Linux distro either.
Their state of ruralism is undesirable I figure
With bits you can hear! 📠
America Off Line :( Hope it ‘s not an omen.
Thank you to AOL for not making me buy a floppy disk until I didn’t need them anymore.
Finally. October 1, 1993 is in sight.
TIL dial up is still active. Interesting.
Wish it said how many people still used it.
Kinda sad in a way
My first ever ISP was AOL via dialup back around 1995
Me too! The crackhead downstairs tried to sell us AOL CDs.
“You guys are into computers, right!? I got this software, only $20!”
RIP to the GOAT
bless 'em. i surely used a few of their welcome to the curated internet discs back in the day!
for a good while AOL Instant Messenger was the GOAT as well. I had a 3 letter AIM name for probably a decade before they decided to give paying customers priority and someone took it.
it’s debut
Yes. It is.
