AOL » History » Version 5
manawyrm, 06/07/2022 05:55 PM
1 | 1 | manawyrm | h1. AOL |
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3 | 3 | manawyrm | !aol2.png! |
4 | 2 | manawyrm | |
5 | 1 | manawyrm | 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. |
6 | 5 | manawyrm | They are providing a TCP server, which will speak the AOL proprietary P3 protocol. |
7 | 1 | manawyrm | |
8 | The same P3 protocol was also used over dialup and ISDN lines back in the day. |
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9 | @manawyrm offers AOL 3.0 compatible access to RE-AOL in the OCTOI network at 030 1234 3063. |
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11 | "Video of a 56k V.90 dialup onto RE-AOL":https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9cYW_QuidY |
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13 | 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: |
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14 | https://discord.gg/reaol |
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16 | 3 | manawyrm | !aol3.png! |
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18 | 1 | manawyrm | h3. AOL access via modem |
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20 | The AOL client software has a folder called "ccl" (communication control language?), which contains a number of scripts for different countries and access providers. |
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21 | The default "AOLnet provider":https://gist.github.com/Manawyrm/c0d5e29703ec57d3f27571d08aeb5624 requires the following procedure: |
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22 | After the modem connect, the remote side sends: "ANSnet\r\nlogin:", to which the AOL client responds with "aol". |
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23 | The remote side will then send "connected" and start speaking the P3 protocol (for example by connecting the socket over to re-aol.org). |
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24 | 3 | manawyrm | |
25 | !aol.png! |
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26 | 4 | manawyrm | |
27 | h3. Using ISDN via AVMs CAPI-Port driver |
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29 | ISDN can be used to connect to AOL via X.75. |
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30 | The AOL 3.0 client isn't really expecting that and needs a few special tricks. |
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32 | In the client itself, under the Modem settings, configure the Setup modem string as: |
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33 | <pre> |
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34 | ATS31=0; S36=0; S38=0; S42=0; S45=2048; S51=0^M |
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35 | </pre> |
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36 | (which sets X.75 without compression, refer to AVMs CAPIPort manual) |
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37 | !setupmodemstring.png! |
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39 | 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): |
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40 | !capi.png! |
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41 | 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. |
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43 | As a final roadblock, AVM CAPIPort only sends a "CONNECT" message after it successfully connected, not "CONNECT 57600" (or similar) with a baudrate. |
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44 | 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). |
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46 | You'll need to change ccl/AOLNET.CCL in AOLs installation directory as follows, to accept CONNECT without any baudrate: |
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47 | !ccl.png! |