DIAL-UP NETWORKING (1999)

Getting online was an event. You picked a moment when nobody needed the phone, opened the Dial-Up Networking folder, double-clicked your connection, and then listened to about twenty seconds of noise while two modems worked out how to talk to each other.

Press Connect, or double-click the connection icon, and it plays out properly. The small Connecting to… box counts you through Dialing, Verifying user name and password, and Logging on to network. Then it is replaced by Connected to…, with the speed, the duration ticking in that odd three-digit hours format, and the bytes going up. Details opens out to show the server type and the modem.

Turn your sound on. Connect plays the original dialing and handshake recording by William Termini, from this reference video. The audio is hosted locally using the public-domain copy on Wikimedia Commons. The connection waits for the recording to finish before verifying your user name and password. The Modem speaker checkbox mutes and unmutes it without restarting the sequence. Cancel stops it immediately. The drop-down still lets you simulate an engaged line, no dial tone, or someone picking up the phone.

Condition: Working. The phone bill is not included.

The program is open in its own window. Everything in it is imaginary: nothing on your computer is touched.