Users dialing in from the Mac desktop and users on the Win95 machine end up in the exact same rooms talking to each other.
hammycheesy 2 days ago [-]
I was having some good fun chatting with other randos on here, then a few minutes ago nearly everyone was kicked out of the room, and now I just see a few bots talking to each other with some canned phrases. Bummer.
idinnoaname 7 hours ago [-]
I hate to break it to you, but they were just bots. Log out and log back in, and they play through the same identical "conversation".
I don't know what I expected, but that was very dissapointing.
The problem with this sort of thing being so rampant on the internet is now I suspect you and the rest of the comments about interacting with this site, are either bots, or not capable of differentiating between actual human interaction and interacting with bots.
To take that thought even further, how far will this go? We already have ai phone agents larping as humans, pausing to think, simulating background chatter of a call center, and the click clacking of keys on a keyboard.
Whats next?
henrychannel 7 minutes ago [-]
fair call. i took the scripted regulars out completely. everyone typing in there now is a real person. the older lines at the top are real people too, just from earlier
henrychannel 2 days ago [-]
Outage fixed :)
dmd 2 days ago [-]
maddening that you have to manually scroll
henrychannel 2 days ago [-]
This is fixed now
2 days ago [-]
donkey_brains 2 days ago [-]
Thanks man, got me right in the nostalgia.
thefourthchime 2 days ago [-]
The first thing I did with computers that had any success was a WWIV BBS in the LA area called Altered States.
I think I ran it on a 386 under MS‑DOS. At some point I was getting about forty calls a day and the line was busy a lot. I would drop into sysop mode and talk to people sometimes. One of those times was actually a girl in real life. She ended up being my girlfriend for a couple of years -- fun times....
Aeolun 2 days ago [-]
This was fun until I realized I was talking to bots :/
If you want to talk to people I got https://superchat.win/ which has a browser version and connects to humans.
runtygrood 2 days ago [-]
It's a bunch of people spamming racial sluts. Great suggestion.
Aeolun 2 days ago [-]
Well, yeah, I guess that happens?
Do you think it’s the less nostalgic style? Or the fact you actually talk to people that brings that out?
For what it’s worth, that was indeed a bit depressing.
ErroneousBosh 2 days ago [-]
It's just like 1996!
Aeolun 2 days ago [-]
I guess its not entirely bots, but it is impossible to tell.
different goal. infinite mac is a museum, this is closer to a theme park.
jorisw 2 days ago [-]
Yeah it looks nothing like it. Garbage.
haul_up 2 days ago [-]
Oh man, the nostalgia hit is real. Takes me straight back to my first IRC client and fumbling with Dial-up.
stldev 2 days ago [-]
Neat! Reminds me of circa 92-94 Prodigy/CompuServe days. By '96 I recall having moved on to local dial-up ISPs. The longer handshake was well worth it for 56k versus the 300-2400 many of us came from.
katzenq 2 days ago [-]
Vibe-coded garbage full of nonsense LLM text.
amlib 2 days ago [-]
Vibe-coded or not what grinds my gears in those throwback computer interfaces is how imprecise they are. I the case of Windows, 9x had a meticulous pixel perfect alignment of widgets, great looking 2px thick bevel effects and all the proportions needed to be right for it feel "right". But almost all those throwback attempts, and specially now with AI coding, forget about this and seem to only go as far as thinking having a grey background with some tacky bevel is enough to recreate it.
samlinnfer 2 days ago [-]
And the font, the font is always off
NDlurker 2 days ago [-]
It's fun. Do you not like fun?
LastTrain 2 days ago [-]
I do! I like sex too but that doesn’t mean I’d fuck a robot.
donkey_brains 2 days ago [-]
I would! And Cthulu willing, someday I will.
NDlurker 2 days ago [-]
There are real people chatting on there
rvz 2 days ago [-]
There is no use case for any of this. Most of this vibe coded garbage will get abandoned in months and the deleted.
1-6 2 days ago [-]
Dialup isn't supposed to be this smooth.
jlarocco 2 days ago [-]
I don't know... AOL chat on a 56k modem (IMO) worked better than Teams and Slack and had most of the features.
owlninja 2 days ago [-]
And a skip button breaks the immersion!
danielvaughn 2 days ago [-]
I was 12 in 96 when I got my first computer - wow does this bring back memories.
FlowingRiver 2 days ago [-]
Howdy fellow child of the year of Orwell, 1984. :D
hammycheesy 2 days ago [-]
This makes me very nostalgic, but in a slightly sad way, where I remember how much better the real chat experience was back in the day.
This look-alike client struggles to show me messages in real-time. It looks like they only get pulled down in big chunks every few seconds. It also fails to scroll the new messages into view. I don't remember these sort of problems in IRC clients or IM programs of the 90s (though there were many other problems).
In a way I guess it paints the irony of modern computing, where we have several orders of magnitude more in computing power and resources, but that has only enabled us to keep rushing out perpetually unpolished, unfinished products.
It's still a bunch of fun to see a bunch of strangers talking completely unfiltered nonsense in a rudimentary chat room, though!
BobbyTables2 2 days ago [-]
The UI also reminds me how clean things used to be.
Simple straightforward buttons; the screen is not filled to the brim with advertising…
ajackfox 2 days ago [-]
Satisfyingly nostalgic. Thanks.
outworlder 2 days ago [-]
The modem handshake sounds to my ears like 33.3k, not 56k. Not sure if this is accurate but that how it sounds like.
marten31 2 days ago [-]
This takes me right back to IRC and Netscape Navigator. The sound of a modem connecting would complete the experience!
henrychannel 2 days ago [-]
Turn your speakers on, the sounds in there :)
sage981 2 days ago [-]
That System 7 desktop brings back memories of trying to get IRC working on a PowerBook. Amazing dedication!
JojoFatsani 2 days ago [-]
Damn I had this idea but you beat me to it
GalaxyNova 2 days ago [-]
I am very confused if I am speaking to real people or to LLMs
amilios 2 days ago [-]
Real people! LLMs wouldn't have such a varied distribution of outputs I think ;)
alexkkoo93 2 days ago [-]
thanks for all the friends I made as MY_NAMES_JEV389. Twas fun
donkey_brains 2 days ago [-]
Awesome chatting with you Jev. I never thought you were a bot despite what some people said. busysignal93
Feathercrown 2 days ago [-]
AI prose everywhere. Disappointing for something that should be a labor of love.
2 days ago [-]
empressplay 2 days ago [-]
A D-Dial recreation with no bots and a number of regulars:
The state runs on Upstash Redis and is shared across three different frontends (React/Vite deployed on Vercel):
* The standalone chat interface (https://lolchat.rip)
* A Windows 95 simulator (https://56k.rip)
* A Mac System 7 simulator (https://dialup.rip)
Users dialing in from the Mac desktop and users on the Win95 machine end up in the exact same rooms talking to each other.
I don't know what I expected, but that was very dissapointing.
The problem with this sort of thing being so rampant on the internet is now I suspect you and the rest of the comments about interacting with this site, are either bots, or not capable of differentiating between actual human interaction and interacting with bots.
To take that thought even further, how far will this go? We already have ai phone agents larping as humans, pausing to think, simulating background chatter of a call center, and the click clacking of keys on a keyboard.
Whats next?
I think I ran it on a 386 under MS‑DOS. At some point I was getting about forty calls a day and the line was busy a lot. I would drop into sysop mode and talk to people sometimes. One of those times was actually a girl in real life. She ended up being my girlfriend for a couple of years -- fun times....
If you want to talk to people I got https://superchat.win/ which has a browser version and connects to humans.
Do you think it’s the less nostalgic style? Or the fact you actually talk to people that brings that out?
For what it’s worth, that was indeed a bit depressing.
So many UI elements are absolutely WRONG.
(For reference: https://infinitemac.org)
This look-alike client struggles to show me messages in real-time. It looks like they only get pulled down in big chunks every few seconds. It also fails to scroll the new messages into view. I don't remember these sort of problems in IRC clients or IM programs of the 90s (though there were many other problems).
In a way I guess it paints the irony of modern computing, where we have several orders of magnitude more in computing power and resources, but that has only enabled us to keep rushing out perpetually unpolished, unfinished products.
It's still a bunch of fun to see a bunch of strangers talking completely unfiltered nonsense in a rudimentary chat room, though!
Simple straightforward buttons; the screen is not filled to the brim with advertising…
https://www.magviz.ca