Recently from a post on Habré I that in the ICQ messenger they are massively deleting old inactive accounts. I decided to check two of my accounts, to which I connected relatively recently - at the beginning of 2018 - and yes, they were also deleted. When trying to connect or log into an account on a site with a known correct password, I received a response that the password was incorrect. It turns out that I no longer have "ICQ". It seems to be no problem, but the feeling is unusual: I had it for more than 20 years, but now I don’t. I am a collector of retro technologies, but I do not consider myself an activist, a supporter of the preservation of eternal values, a fighter for everything old and good. Everything in this world is changing, and there is nothing to mourn for gray hair, much less for the sequence of seven or nine numbers that was once proudly printed on my business card.
But there is a reason to sum up. ICQ lives, but I'm no longer there, which means you can tell the whole story of the "me and ICQ" format from beginning to end. This post is in the name of nostalgia, in my terms - sobbing, but not only. In a very limited way, I restored the experience of twenty years ago, when at the turn of the century ICQ was the number one messenger. I listened to those very sounds, sent a couple of messages to myself. I won't say that nowadays ICQ is "not a cake": in the end, this service has successfully outlived its competitors (AOL Instant Messenger, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger). 15-20 years ago, almost all the features of modern network communication tools were implemented in ICQ, but it happened too early. We'll talk about this.
The diary of a collector of old pieces of iron I keep in .
The earliest in the web archive The site ICQ.com is dated April 1997, and then the domain belonged to a completely different organization - some kind of association of manufacturers and users of measuring equipment. IN there is already the same ICQ, in the recognizable style of "early web primitivism."
The version of the program for Windows 95/NT is v98a, and I definitely didn't find it. The site contains complex instructions, you can choose two distributions - one includes the heavy DLL Mfc42, apparently necessary to run software built under Microsoft Visual Studio. This is useful information: my memories of those times are unreliable, especially in terms of the correct dating of events. In 1999, I definitely had an ICQ account. At that time I was studying in the USA, I used ICQ sporadically, the main means of electronic communication at that time was e-mail and Fidonet. ICQ provides for real-time messaging, which requires regular access to the network. I had it then - unlimited dialup for $ 30 a month, but those with whom I wanted to talk, a connection arose at best once a week, either from my mother's work, or from school, or from early Internet cafes. The inaccessibility of the Internet to the masses, the time difference interfered, but when everything coincided, it was cool. The first experiences of network interactive - chat in ICQ or in "Krovatka", radio streaming - this was the future, which has now become a harsh reality. You just delivered an envelope with a handwritten letter to the post office, which will go to the addressee for two weeks. And then you communicate with a person thousands of kilometers away as if he were sitting in a neighboring house.
In early 1999, the ICQ website looks like . There are attempts to build your own Internet with poetesses around a simple service: here you have hosting web pages, games and some kind of “singing boards”. Service Description: ICQ is a revolutionary, web-friendly tool that tells you which of your friends are online and allows you to contact them at any time. No more searching for your friends and colleagues every time you need to chat with them.
That is: ICQ has a list of contacts to which you add people. For each contact, you can see if he is online and chat with him. The list of contacts will be transferred to the server a little later, which will simplify the problem of accessing the account from different computers. ICQ is not a pioneer of real-time communication on the Internet, but the company managed to "package" the service in a form that is understandable and convenient for the average user. So successful that in 1998 the Israeli startup Mirabilis was bought by the America Online holding, at that time a giant of the network business. AOL grew on the back of the dot-com boom, so much so that in 2000 it took over traditional media conglomerate Time Warner for $165 billion. For ICQ, they paid more modest, but still insane money for those times: $ 287 million immediately and another 120 million a little later.
year 2000. Hostel, ten-megabit local area and constant access to the Internet at the speed "as lucky". ICQ is a regular means of communication, along with strange discussions in text files shared on students' computers. Hijacking "ICQ" is a common thing: communication with the server is not encrypted and passwords are easily intercepted by tech-savvy neighbors. The ICQ user directory is a prototype of a social network, you can find a random person and chat. To do this, the “Ready to chat” setting appears in the client. The computer is one for four, you need to carefully separate accounts so as not to break something.
2001, first job. ICQ is a corporate messenger, the prototype of "slack" or "discord", only without chat rooms, all communication is strictly one-on-one. If you want to add someone to the copy, copy and forward the message. The contact list includes colleagues and superiors. The bosses call on the carpet with guiding messages, trips there are discussed with colleagues (the main thing is not to confuse what and to whom to send).
The history is laconic: smoke breaks, discussion of work issues, exchange of discs with music, an invitation to watch the latest version of Masyanya. The client software is official, but alternatives are periodically evaluated - either a certain Trillian, or early versions of Miranda IM.
2003 Rented apartment, dialup again, but sometimes mobile communication via GPRS is used. First attempts to chat via mobile communication: as a rule, using a mobile phone and a PDA on Windows Mobile or Palm OS. The experience is inspiring, but impractical: constantly being in touch is expensive and difficult, the battery of devices is not designed for round-the-clock connection. After version 2001b, ICQ 2003 and ICQ Lite come out - I use the latter, but gradually switch to the alternative Miranda IM client. There are two reasons: the official ICQ stuffed with features became heavier (which they tried to solve using the Lite version), and advertising banners appeared in the client. I struggled with them not so much because of the rejection of banners, but because of the meager bandwidth of the dial-up connection. ICQ as a company, in turn, fought against advertising-free alternative clients, periodically changing the protocol.
Until 2005-2006, absolutely all online communication takes place in ICQ. Communication with colleagues, personal life, intimate conversations, buying and selling. ICQ's 2005 fashion site begins with an Adobe Flash video. ICQ 5 is the last official client that I used: it is installed in case of problems with alternative software. I use an alternative client also because of the multi-platform. In the middle of the XNUMXs, ICQ competitors began to appear in batches. Part of the communication moved to the Google Talk service, as it not only saved the message history on the server, but was also built into the GMail mail interface. Studying the features of the official ICQ client, I understand that the transition was not made then because there was nothing in ICQ. And not because of the integration of Google chat with other services of the company. Rather, the reason was that Google Talk is a new phenomenon, and ICQ is not so much anymore. "ICQ" in attempts to monetize everything and everyone seemed to be an overloaded monster, GTalk - an easy and convenient service "strictly on the case."
Similar stages of development in the second half of the decade went through the alternative messenger QIP. At first it was a convenient replacement for the official ICQ client with a very similar interface, but gradually acquiring features (its own messaging protocol, photo hosting, forced browser integration).
It is normal to monetize software and users, but in the case of ICQ and QIP, I stubbornly did not want to monetize. Later, the same story happened with Skype: it was actively used for voice communication, but over time it became heavy and inconvenient compared to competitors, without offering any unique features. In 2008, I finally switched to the messenger , the project is open, without advertising, convenient and minimalistic, allowing you to connect subscribers from ICQ, Google Talk, Facebook and Vkontakte instant messengers, etc. in one window.
In 2010, I add a new contact to ICQ for the last time - my future wife. However, on "ICQ" we almost do not communicate. In general, in the early 2010s, there is some kind of IM-timelessness: I don’t remember preferring any one chat service. My attention is roughly equally divided between ICQ (less and less), Skype, Google Talk, SMS, messages on Facebook and VK. It could be assumed that the platform will win in the end - where the user simultaneously receives a lot of services - and mail, and social networks, and shopping and "stories", and the devil knows what else. It seemed that “chat” had become a harsh reality, that nothing new could be invented there.
It seemed! In 2013-2014, I finally found myself in an “always online” situation. At the end of the 2010s, the batteries of the devices did not allow doing this, later - the unreliable coverage of the cellular network. By the mid-4s, smartphones could already work for a day without turning off data transfer, and cellular communications were also pulled up with the widespread introduction of 18G base stations. The concept of a permanent internet connection is finally a reality for most people, at least in cities, 2003 years after ICQ, a service that initially works best in this scenario. But in terms of the number of users and consumer attention, the winners were neither ICQ nor Facebook and Google, but the independent services Whatsapp (later became part of Facebook), Telegram and the like. A high-quality mobile application helped (and not screwed somewhere on the side to the desktop one), the idea of “channels” in Telegram, collective communication, seamless sending of pictures, video and music, sound and video communication. All this was in ICQ (except for channels) already in XNUMX, albeit in a limited form! The most successful technologies are those that appear on time. All the rest, sooner or later, come to me under the heading "Antiquities".
The most important artifact of my “ICQ era” is the archive of the Miranda IM messenger, more precisely, a portable distribution kit for a program with a message database. I wrote about him in programs of 2002: such a monument to bygone times was squeezed into the collection of software distributions. Later, I found another copy of Miranda from 2005, and it turns out that I have an archive of about 4 years of conversations in ICQ during the most “golden” period of this messenger. I can’t read these logs for a long time because of the irresistible facepalm. Now, in March 2020, the main topic has become the coronavirus, and they say that it is not recommended to touch your face with your hands. So I won't. The screenshot above is the same Miranda IM from the archive. It still runs even under Windows 10, although it looks a little strange on a 4K display and has problems with encoding. In order to keep the privacy of the subscribers in my contact list, I renamed them according to what I remember, and what happened in the end. Such a cast of my network life about 15 years ago.
And here is the end of the story. In 2018 I am setting up a retro laptop . I install Windows XP, a couple of retro games, WinAMP player. At the same time, I set up Pidgin, which has not been used for a long time, I add two of my ICQ accounts to it, and I still don’t know that I’m visiting them for the last time. In the list of contacts out of 70 people, only one is online, and it seems that he himself forgot that somewhere he has a client running, he does not answer. In March 2020, Pidgin no longer connects - the server returns the message "wrong password", although the password is exactly correct. The same thing happens when you try to log into your account on the ICQ website. "Recover password" does not work either - neither mail nor mobile phone is indicated in the credentials. The era of "ICQ" in a single household is over.
Even if you have an account, old ICQ clients will not work, just like old email programs or browsers. This software depends on changes in the network service, and at least it will break on encryption of communications - at the beginning of the 2001s it was not there, now it is a necessary requirement for any data transfer on the Internet. You can take a retro computer and install ICQ 1999b, but you won't get past the UIN and password screen. But there is an alternative: ICQ Groupware Server, an early (XNUMX) attempt by the company to bring the messenger into the corporate space, most likely too early. The server allows you to create your own personal network based on the "secure" protocol, and give yourself a cool four-digit number!
"Custom" versions of ICQ cannot work with Groupware Server (or I didn't succeed), you need a special corporate client. Theoretically, a Linux server is compatible with regular clients , domestic development and the result of reverse engineering of a proprietary protocol. Luckily, the archive of the early ICQ ftp server was preserved in the web archive, and I didn't have to look for official distributions in the dark corners of the Internet. Here There is useful information about the work of this software.
The client interface is very similar to the regular ICQ version 99b. This is the very beginning of the "ICQ" life, complete minimalism, both in terms of functions and design. I ran the server on the same ThinkPad T43 running Windows XP, although it would be correct to use Windows NT4. The client software was installed on with Windows 98.
Works! Most of all, I was surprised by the lack of a dialogue mode in this client: messages are sent and received as e-mail - you need to click Reply and only then you can enter text. There is also a “dialogue” in this version, but separately: there, apparently, there is a direct connection between clients and then you can enter text in real time - in different windows for the sender and recipient. Here it is, the dawn of instant communications.
I will end this text with a video demonstration. It had to be done, not so much because of the video, but because of the sounds accompanying the work of the client. Once the standard background of our existence, they are now part of history. It's not that ICQ has changed and I no longer have an account there. We ourselves have also changed. This is normal, but for some reason I sometimes like to call out of oblivion such ghosts from the past, historical software on ancient hardware. And remember.
Source: habr.com