How did AoL dialup work?

[Adrian Caspersz]

I seem to remember there being something strange about the early days of
ISP dialup, that AoL having roots as a dialup BBS integrated internet
access was a bit different than other dialup providers at the time.

Was it bare point-to-point protocol, or something else?

Did users get a real IP address?

--
Adrian C

[bert]

In article <iddlpq...@mid.individual.net>, Adrian Caspersz
<em...@here.invalid> writes

All I remember is that it was pretty crap.
--
bert

[notya...@gmail.com]

Original dial up was to DDI number ranges - so for instance Cix only had servers in London and you paid them for time online and BT for dial up calls - expensive.

Later major providers established "points of presence" in major conurbations, so it was only a local call. Finally IIRC BT provided dial up on 0800 ranges for V.90 modems and ISDN.

[Graham J]

I think the same dial-up mechanism worked the same for all ISPs. Also
if your connection was via ISDN in the form of BT Home Highway.

I think AOL forced you to connect via some sort of VPN (built into their
own dial-upmodem) so that your were in a slightly more secure
environment, and could only get to the bits of the internet that they
allowed. Their early selling point was "internet safety" ...

Once ADSL modems came along they could not enforce that any longer.

--
Graham J

[Adrian Caspersz]

On 10/04/2021 17:49, Graham J wrote:

> I think AOL forced you to connect via some sort of VPN (built into their
> own dial-upmodem) so that your were in a slightly more secure
> environment, and could only get to the bits of the internet that they
> allowed.  Their early selling point was "internet safety" ...

I wasn't a subscriber myself, yeah, that's what I kind of remember about
the service.

But next to impossible to find anything online about it.

--
Adrian C

[Tim+]

Not my recollection. I think they had their own “branded” browser but you
could use any other browser and access anything with it.

Tim

--
Please don't feed the trolls

[Chris]

I remember the free floopies and latterly CDs which you got in computer
magazines (remember them?). They didn't give free access to the internet,
it was only AOL's closed garden like Compuserve and paid them a monthly fee
for the privilege. Not only was it restrictive but also very US-centric
which was of little interest this side of the pond.

[Theo]

Graham J <nob...@nowhere.co.uk> wrote:
> I think the same dial-up mechanism worked the same for all ISPs. Also
> if your connection was via ISDN in the form of BT Home Highway.

As in it was V.whatever - a 19K2, 33K6, 56K modem.

> I think AOL forced you to connect via some sort of VPN (built into their
> own dial-upmodem) so that your were in a slightly more secure
> environment, and could only get to the bits of the internet that they
> allowed. Their early selling point was "internet safety" ...

Not built into their modem hardware - they used whatever hardware your
machine had - but built into their dialler app. That connected to their
walled garden. I presume originally internet wasn't part of that picture,
but it was later grafted on, in a sort of VPN as you say - presumably
the software presented an IP connection to Windows that went through their
filters (or maybe just an HTTP proxy?).

Before PPP the common connection type was SLIP, but I suspect AOL did their
own thing.

According to:
http://justinakapaste.com/aol-ppp-information-doc/
there were several other components. However it doesn't explain what all
the abbreviations mean - "AOL TFEPs and Super Tunnels", "T2TP", "P3" - so
we're left guessing as to what they did.

Ah, this has a lot more info:
http://koin.org/files/aol.aim/aol/fdo/manuals/WAOL.doc
- gives the architecture of the Windows software stack in some details. In
particular it appears they have their own networking stack below the VxD
level:


" • P3: procides reliable, in-order packet delivery. P3 was originally
created to optimized slow-speed connections over packet-switched networks
(e.g. Sprint X.25)."

"The AOLMODEM tool acts as the primary interface between the WAOL program
and the modem. It receives the packet data from the comm. port associated
with the modem and passes it on to the P3 tool."

"AOLMODEM and TCPIP talk through the AOLCOMM module to the P3 module. The
AOLCOMM module acts as the interface between AOLMODEM and TCPIP and P3."

"Non-PPP data flow

• Client’s basic connection to the host complex : TTY (raw byte)
connection to the network Point of Presence (POP).
• POP converts raw byte stream into a TCP/IP connection to a TFEP in the
AOL host complex. (Non-AOLnet POP’s use X.25 to a FEP instead.)
• Data flow diagram for service traffic might look like this ...
"

"The P3 Tool is a communications protocol used to ensure error-free
transmission between the host and the
client computer. The data is formed into packets with an 8-byte header and a
terminating carriage return. The minimum length of a packet is the header
plus carriage return, the nominal length is 128 bytes, and the current
maximum length is 1024 bytes.

The P3 protocol was designed with the following constraints:
(1) The protocol must detect any errors in transmission, and make sure
that all messages are delivered without error in correct order.
(2) The number of packets sent should be kept to a minimum.
(3) The maximum size of a packet, including all headers and trailers
must be less than or equal to 128 characters, because of its intended use
over packet networks.

There are two classes of packets - numbered and unnumbered. Data packets are
numbered; all other packets are not. The data packets are numbered
consecutively and must be delivered in order."


So it seems like what goes over the modem link in that implementation is P3,
not PPP.

> Once ADSL modems came along they could not enforce that any longer.

They could have done roughly the same with the original USB ADSL modems, but
as soon as people started having dedicated routers this wasn't something
they could maintain. Presumably the opportunity was taken to throw out the
legacy P3 stack and start again.

Theo

[Martin Brown]

On 10/04/2021 17:15, notya...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Saturday, 10 April 2021 at 13:59:40 UTC+1, Adrian Caspersz wrote:
>> I seem to remember there being something strange about the early days of
>> ISP dialup, that AoL having roots as a dialup BBS integrated internet
>> access was a bit different than other dialup providers at the time.
>>
>> Was it bare point-to-point protocol, or something else?
>>
>> Did users get a real IP address?

Sort of, but it wasn't nick named Arseholes Online for nothing.
Mostly aimed at the American market but give away CDs were everywhere.

> Original dial up was to DDI number ranges - so for instance Cix only had servers in London and you paid them for time online and BT for dial up calls - expensive.
>
> Later major providers established "points of presence" in major conurbations, so it was only a local call. Finally IIRC BT provided dial up on 0800 ranges for V.90 modems and ISDN.

Compuserve had points of presence in major cities long before dial-up
internet was even a thing that you could contemplate using. You paid a
monthly fee for access plus whatever phone charges you incurred. Access
to the internet via Compuserve was added as an afterthought much later.
ISTR they had their own hobbled browser and net-nanny filters.

AOL followed the same sort of dialup model as Compuserve but at a point
where the web was beginning to be interesting to the general public.

Prior to that era everything was command line interface geek territory
with archie, gopher, ftp, telnet etc.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

[notya...@gmail.com]

Depends what you mean by internet. That was going long before the World Wide Web and supported things like email quite happily - I remember using it when working for STC back in the 1980's. There were news groups too - I was able to find the first message on a news group once - 1974 in MIT about a corridor closure.

There were also dial up bulletin boards.

Walled gardens were quite common - AoL & Compuserve (as above), Cix IIRC, Apple until relatively recently and of course if you live in China, Iran, North Korea etc. this is still all you can get...

[Peter Johnson]

On Sun, 11 Apr 2021 13:56:50 +0100, Martin Brown
<'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:


>Compuserve had points of presence in major cities long before dial-up
>internet was even a thing that you could contemplate using. You paid a
>monthly fee for access plus whatever phone charges you incurred. Access
>to the internet via Compuserve was added as an afterthought much later.
>ISTR they had their own hobbled browser and net-nanny filters.
>

When I joined Compuserve I dialled in once a week because of concern
about call charges. When I first enrolled user names were all numeric,
in the format 12345.67890 (or similar). Towards the end of my
membership members could change to @compuserve.com addresses, chosing
their own ID.

[Brian Gregory]

On 11/04/2021 18:48, Peter Johnson wrote:
> When I joined Compuserve I dialled in once a week because of concern
> about call charges. When I first enrolled user names were all numeric,
> in the format 12345.67890 (or similar).

IIRC 5 or 6 octal digits, a comma, 4 octal digits.

I was something like 100265,7324

--
Brian Gregory (in England).

[Angus Robertson - Magenta Systems Ltd]

> Compuserve had points of presence in major cities long before
> dial-up internet was even a thing that you could contemplate
> using.

Ditto, back in the eighties I would dial into the UK CIX Conferencing system
(still using it over 30 years later), also Compuserve and a DEC based system in
Boston called Delphi. There was also BIX run by Byte magazine which is where
CIX got it's Unix conferencing software from. Demon started with a call for
customers in a CIX conference.

Some of those services were also available using X25 packet switching which
preceded the internet and was solid with instant connection, unlike dial-up,
widely used by business until the internet arrived.

Initially dial-up services had shelves of domestic modems, often different
models on different numbers since compatibility was not good in the early days.
But eventually they changed to ISDN-30 boxes (forget the name) that also
supported 56K speeds and were much easier to support than modems, and those
supported dial-up internet until ADSL came along.

Angus

[Roderick Stewart]

Before the advent of the 0845 numbers that would enable access to a
dial-up internet service from anywhere in the country using the same
number, they'd have a different number for each city. Despite this,
Demon Internet somehow managed to obtain a lot of dial-up numbers that
all ended in 666. Maybe nobody else wanted them?

Rod.

[Bob Eager]

Yup. Mine was 10016,2770 !

[Martin Brown]

> Depends what you mean by internet. That was going long before the
> World Wide Web and supported things like email quite happily - I
> remember using it when working for STC back in the 1980's. There were
> news groups too - I was able to find the first message on a news
> group once - 1974 in MIT about a corridor closure.

I remember there was a single EPSS terminal in the university computer
centre - that would have been in about 1977. It was something of a
curiosity although you couldn't really do much on it apart from list
directories on remote machines. Some very faded photos online here:

https://www.euclideanspace.com/coms/history/epss/index.htm

> There were also dial up bulletin boards.

Including some dedicated to various hobbies like astronomy.

>
> Walled gardens were quite common - AoL & Compuserve (as above), Cix
> IIRC, Apple until relatively recently and of course if you live in
> China, Iran, North Korea etc. this is still all you can get...

Compuserve was probably the one that had most clout in industry and
commerce. Almost everyone that was anybody had an account back then.
Many software companies offered support and update downloads that way.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

[Woody]

When NTLWorld started up in about 2000 (when I was a beta tester) it was
something like 0845 455 5220 (if anyone can confirm) and it was still
active well over a decade later despite fast fibre (co-ax delivered)
being widely available.

[Martin Brown]

Mine was somewhat older CIS: 71651,470

From back when the second quad was still a triplet. eg.
(leading zero suppressed?)

https://groups.google.com/g/demon.service/c/HQFbE073feg/m/VNbWNlS4dsoJ

CIS looks like it was more or less fully internet capable at 1998. Maybe
even a bit before that. I generally used it only as a fallback by then.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

[AnthonyL]

On Sat, 10 Apr 2021 22:11:23 -0000 (UTC), Chris <ithi...@gmail.com>
wrote:

It was a magic moment when we could get a Novell server patch over the
wire via Compuserve instead of waiting for a disk pack to be sent out.


--
AnthonyL

Why ever wait to finish a job before starting the next?

[Angus Robertson - Magenta Systems Ltd]

> When NTLWorld started up in about 2000 (when I was a beta tester)
> it was something like 0845 455 5220 (if anyone can confirm) and
> it was still active well over a decade later despite fast fibre
> (co-ax delivered) being widely available.

Telewest had dial-up internet for it's customers on 179. My own supplier at
the time also had dial-up using 020 Telewest phone lines, and fortunately
Telewest had free local calls between customers at the time, so no call charges.


Many ISPs used Lucent Portmaster Integrated Access Servers on ISDN-30 lines to
support 56K speeds, now available for almost nothing on Ebay, but useless
without ISDN.

Angus

[Theo]

Peter Johnson <pe...@parksidewood.nospam> wrote:
> When I joined Compuserve I dialled in once a week because of concern
> about call charges. When I first enrolled user names were all numeric,
> in the format 12345.67890 (or similar). Towards the end of my
> membership members could change to @compuserve.com addresses, chosing
> their own ID.

Long before Compuserve was an online information service, it was a
timesharing system running on DEC hardware.

This chap has some of Compuserve's PDP-10 clones and in this video shows how
to boot one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBKHT1GodBk

Theo

[tim...]

"bert" <be...@bert.bert.com> wrote in message
news:M7zmL7HF...@ghcq.uk...

It was all pretty crap back then

I suspect it's unfair to suggest that AOL was systematically crappier


> --
> bert

[Recliner]

I just tested it, and mine still works, but you need to use a dot rather
than a comma. Of course, I normally use my email name, not number. I still
send and receive Compuserve email every day.

[Pamela]

You can still send and recieve email with your old numeric Compuserve
address? I thought all the old email addresses had been shut down.

[Pamela]

Virgin, who took over NTL, had a dial up number of 0845 455 0280.
Maybe that's the one you mean.

[Recliner]

Compuserve email works perfectly well, and the attachment size limit is the
same as Gmail. Of course, I don't normally use the numeric form of the
email address, but as long as you replace the comma with a dot, the numeric
version works just fine. I even get the occasional spam addressed to mine!

I must admit I've not tried sending mail from my numeric address, but I
assume it would still work, just as it does to receive mail.