I remember when we got our first microwave when I was growing up in the 70s. Whenever you weren’t using it, you were supposed to place a cup of water inside. I think the rationale behind this was so the oven, if accidentally switched on, wouldn’t cook itself! A quick check of the Internet and I found a physics forum that mentions the practice:

This concept arises because early microwave ovens, pre-mid 1970’s had glass envelope magnetrons (the microwave generating tube I have such an oven in my lab – it’s huge) that could not take much reflected microwave power and could be damaged if the oven was run empty, with very little in it, or even frozen food (look on another thread for my answer regarding microwaving ice). So, you were told by manufacturers and in microwave cookbooks to always keep a cup of water in the oven in order to protect the magnetron. Today’s ovens use ceramic dome magnetrons that can withstand large amounts of reflected energy without damage. So, there is o [sic] longer a need for the water.

dated May 31, 2009

The little cup of water in a microwave, rabbit ears on a television, the “choke” on a car – these are all things made obsolete by advances in the related technologies. They are relics of the past and they stir, at least in me, a strong sense of nostalgia. And they are about to be joined by a biggie: dial-up Internet with America Online (AOL).

Beep, bop, boop, boooopp, scrsssshh, geegaw geegaw, scrsssshh… it was the sound your modem made as it negotiated a connection with another modem (a process known as “handshaking”) and it was the prelude to an exciting new world of connectivity through emails, chat rooms, and instant (we used to call them “private”) messages. At its peak in the late 1990s and early 2000s, AOL had over 23 million subscribers in the US, making it the dominant Internet service provider at the time. To show you how much of a computer nerd I was back then, not only was I employed by a Hollywood television postproduction studio as a computer programmer and system administrator, but in my spare time, I was an AOL Guide.

The AOL Community Leader Program (to give it its formal name) consisted of volunteers (called “Guides”) who moderated AOL’s online communities, mainly the chat rooms where people interested in a topic gathered to discuss it by typing their contribution to the conversation into a virtual room where they also read what others were typing. The Guide’s job was to enforce the AOL Terms of Service (TOS) which led to what most people called us – the TOS Cops. But they also called us that because we had special “powers” (software) that allowed us to disconnect someone from the service if they were misbehaving (being intentionally and distractingly argumentative or provocative, rude, or inappropriate) and even freeze their account locking them out until their infraction was reviewed by a committee. Being kicked off or locked out came to be known in the AOL ecosystem as being “TOSsed” so it wasn’t uncommon for someone to notice us Guides enter a chat room and type: “look out, a toss cop just came in.” We were not universally loved!

AOL rolled out its dial-up service in 1989, a full ten years after CompuServe (often called Compu$erve because of its expensive, at the time, subscription rate) had offered a dial-up online information service. But AOL’s innovation was its easy to use and navigate graphical interface, its grouping of topics into “communities” where you could brush virtual elbows with like-minded Internet users, and its relentless marketing. AOL was known for handing out discs and CDs that gave users several hours of Internet access via the service free; the discs were everywhere – you practically couldn’t buy a loaf of bread without it coming with an AOL disc inside! They were so embedded in 1990s American culture that one of those discs now sits in the Smithsonian’s collection.

AOL dominance was such that in 1999 it acquired Time Warner in a massive $165bn deal. But technology moved on, leaving AOL in its wake. The introduction of faster cable Internet service, beginning in 1995, that relied on existing cable TV infrastructure made the familiar handshake of dial-up begin to disappear. And with it, AOL’s prominence. The AOL/Time Warner deal was the largest media merger in history at the time, combining AOL’s Internet services with Time Warner’s vast media holdings. The merger was intended to create a dominant force in the media landscape, but it ultimately proved to be a colossal failure, marked by significant financial losses and strategic missteps, and is now regarded as one of the most disastrous deals in media and communications. Ever! AOL and Time Warner officially parted ways in 2009.

As of 2022, 0.1% of American households rely on dial-up to access the Internet or use a web browser, according to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. Demand for AOL’s “packaged” content centered on its so-called “communities” also waned, and AOL responded with its AOL Dialer software and AOL Shield web browser, optimized for dial-up connections, geared for rural areas without cable or broadband’s infrastructure in place. But web browsers could be the next to go, with the advent of “apps” so easily installed and accessed on your phone. Even Chewy, the online retailer where I buy all of Gordon’s food, toys, and treats, has an app!

AOL dial-up, as well as AOL Dialer and AOL Shield, is scheduled to be discontinued at the end of next month, on September 30, 2025. I have mixed emotions about this. Obviously, I haven’t used dial-up (or AOL for that matter) in over two decades; that would be like riding a horse, weaving in and out of the speeding cars, on the interstate! But still, it was such a big part of my life for so long, this feels like a significant loss.

So, let’s connect to AOL one last time (for old times’ sake)…