A 1996 Chat Room Simulator That Connects to Windows 95 and Mac Desktops
1996 chat room simulator connected to Win95 and System 7 web desktops
COMETLINK is a web-based chat room that recreates the look and feel of 1996 online services. It's accessible directly or through two other simulated desktops: 56k.rip (Windows 95) and dialup.rip (Macintosh). Users pick a screen name, join rooms, and chat. Messages are automatically moderated before being stored, and privacy is a priority—no account needed.
It is new. It is not an old service brought back, just a copy of what that felt like.
- outworlder
The modem handshake sounds to my ears like 33.3k, not 56k. Not sure if this is accurate but that how it sounds like.
- thefourthchime
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....
- henrychannel
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.
- Aeolun
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.
- stldev
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.