Retronetworking

h1. AOL

!aol2.png!

The "RE-AOL project":https://g.livejournal.com/10829.html has done some fantastic work in reverse-engineering and writing a new server backend for old AOL clients.

They are providing a TCP server, which will speak the AOL propritary P3 protocol. 

The same P3 protocol was also used over dialup and ISDN lines back in the day.

@manawyrm offers AOL 3.0 compatible access to RE-AOL in the OCTOI network at 030 1234 3063.

"Video of a 56k V.90 dialup onto RE-AOL":https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9cYW_QuidY

The RE-AOL project itself is still pretty young and they seem to be missing a website. Most of their development seems to be happening in a Discord channel:

https://discord.gg/reaol

!aol3.png!

h3. AOL access via modem

The AOL client software has a folder called "ccl" (communication control language?), which contains a number of scripts for different countries and access providers.

The default "AOLnet provider":https://gist.github.com/Manawyrm/c0d5e29703ec57d3f27571d08aeb5624 requires the following procedure:

After the modem connect, the remote side sends: "ANSnet\r\nlogin:", to which the AOL client responds with "aol".

The remote side will then send "connected" and start speaking the P3 protocol (for example by connecting the socket over to re-aol.org).

!aol.png!

h3. Using ISDN via AVMs CAPI-Port driver

ISDN can be used to connect to AOL via X.75.

The AOL 3.0 client isn't really expecting that and needs a few special tricks. 

In the client itself, under the Modem settings, configure the Setup modem string as:

<pre>

ATS31=0; S36=0; S38=0; S42=0; S45=2048; S51=0^M

</pre>

(which sets X.75 without compression, refer to AVMs CAPIPort manual)

!setupmodemstring.png!

As AOL 3.0 is pretty old and uses the old UNIMODEM API (which can only address low-digit COM ports), you'll need to have CAPIPort exposed as one of COM1-4. You can do this in the CAPIPort setup assistant (you might need to reinstall CAPIPort to do this, remember to reboot after uninstallation and reinstallation):

!capi.png!

If COM1-4 are already allocated by physical/other devices, you can use Device manager to change the COM ports of those devices to higher ones. 

As a final roadblock, AVM CAPIPort only sends a "CONNECT" message after it successfully connected, not "CONNECT 57600" (or similar) with a baudrate.

The connection script in the AOL client requires there to be a baudrate after the CONNECT string, otherwise it won't match and will wait forever (until timeout occurs).

You'll need to change ccl/AOLNET.CCL in AOLs installation directory as follows, to accept CONNECT without any baudrate:

!ccl.png!