AOL (now a Yahoo subsidiary) just announced its dial-up internet service will be discontinued at the end of September.
“The change also means the retirement of the AOL Dialer software and the AOL Shield browser, both designed for older operating systems and slow connections that relied on the familiar screech of a modem handshake,” remembers Slashdot reader BrianFagioli (noting that dial-up Internet “was once the gateway to the web for millions of households, back when speeds were measured in kilobits and waiting for a picture to load could feel like an eternity.”)
AOL’s dial-up service “has been publicly available for 34 years,” writes Tom’s Hardware. But AppleInsider notes the move comes more than 40 years after AOL started “as a very early Apple service.”
AOL itself started back in 1983 under the name Control Video Corporation, offering online services for the Atari 2600 console. After failing, it became Quantum Computer Services
Leave a Reply