1996 chat room simulator connected to Win95 and System 7 web desktops

A zero-account browser chat room mimicking mid-90s online services.

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.

Satisfyingly nostalgic. Thanks.

Dialup isn't supposed to be this smooth.

thanks for all the friends I made as MY_NAMES_JEV389. Twas fun

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!

Vibe-coded garbage full of nonsense LLM text.

Damn I had this idea but you beat me to it

Looks good, reminds me of the 1990s.

AI prose everywhere. Disappointing for something that should be a labor of love.