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ICQ: 20 Years Is No Limit

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Re: ICQ: 20 Years Is No Limit

#101

Post by saganus »

swozey wrote: post #50
drinchev wrote: post #44

My ICQ UID is 15584496 . I still remember people buying less-digits or easy-to-remember digits accounts for real money. Gosh, I just logged in. Kudos for not auto-deleting my account for so many years.

163766. Had tons of people asking to buy it. Too bad I can't even log in since it's tied to my email address from 4th or 5th grade. I think the numbers started at 100000. Prior to that, elementary school, I used PowWow and Mplayer to socialize with pretty much only Californians.. since everyone on the internet back then lived in CA. That was a weird time. I of course was 18 for.. oh, 10 years. I believe I've met 2-3…

I remember that once I started looking for really low numbers and I believe in the 100s range you could find Mirabilis developers.

Re: ICQ: 20 Years Is No Limit

#102

Post by [deleted] »

scott_s wrote: post #51

smacks forehead I seek you. I don't think I ever got that. And it was my primary messaging platform for a long time - I grudgingly made the move to AIM sometime around 2002. I felt that ICQ allowed more in-depth conversations; IM was much more call-and-response.

[deleted]

Re: ICQ: 20 Years Is No Limit

#103

Post by AdmiralAsshat »

hal9000xp wrote: post #74

I'm former ICQ backend developer (2010 - 2014). I started to work at Mail.Ru in 2010, when Mail.Ru bought ICQ from AOL. I was enjoyed working with ICQ backend code-base written by AOL (although to be honest not all code was high quality). Here are some quick facts about ICQ backend infrastructure: 1) ICQ servers has over 2'700'000 lines of code which is written in C and C++; 2) ICQ has its own TCP/IP implementation w…

>6) C core-code is written in old-school style and I liked that;

How "old-school" are we talking? Like K&R-C style or what?

Re: ICQ: 20 Years Is No Limit

#104

Post by jandrese »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #72
cm2187 wrote: post #49

The sad reality is that ICQ was more functional and cross platform than IM are on skype 20 years later...

Kinda the point now a days. Everyone wants platform lock-in.

This drives me so crazy. Usability has regressed because everyone wants to control everything.

As far as I know it's not possible to get one app that combines Google Hangouts, iMessage, Facebook Messager, WhatsApp, etc... into one place like you could with the old messaging apps. Now you have to leave 10 things running all the time just to keep your connections.

Re: ICQ: 20 Years Is No Limit

#105

Post by shoover »

Rondom wrote: post #98
shoover wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, at last via web.icq.com I was able to recover my account, update my email address, and reset my password. Looks like my contact list was wiped at some point over the years, though.

If I remember it correctly, server-side contact lists were only introduced in 2001 or so. In 99b it was stored on the client. That's my faint memory speaking, though.

That may be. I'd guess I last used ICQ in 1999 at the latest. I think I have a backup of my client database somewhere, but chances are slim it's readable.

Re: ICQ: 20 Years Is No Limit

#106

Post by sakopov »

ICQ brings back some memories. I think the last time I used ICQ was around '99. I was a little shit (14-years-old) and messing around with Sub7 and writing my own client/server tools in Delphi. I was literally just spamming random people after school with either the Sub7 server or my own little tools and screwing with their computers. The "Matrix Screen" always freaked people out.

Re: ICQ: 20 Years Is No Limit

#107

Post by jandrese »

bluedino wrote: post #22
qwertyuiop924 wrote: post #10

>the forerunner of all messengers ...erm... IRC? write? talk? CBBS? No?

Those aren't really messengers.

Unix talk is pretty close. Also, BBS chat software would be another good example, although that was somewhat rare since few BBS systems had multiple lines and even on the ones that did you wouldn't just hang out waiting to chat.

I missed the low UIN boat on ICQ because I was solidly into FreeBSD back then and the ICQ client was only on Windows. It also looked sketchy as hell with the crudely drawn flower icon and public domain sound effects. I didn't join for years and ended up with a barely 7 digit UIN.

Re: ICQ: 20 Years Is No Limit

#109

Post by guard-of-terra »

mahyarm wrote: post #77
sofaofthedamned wrote: post #26

Everybody is missing the elephant in the room with ICQ, which is why it was popular: In my mid 20's, i'd come back from the pub drunk, login, search for girls online now near me and send them messages. Was usually somebody drunk at the other end, had a few fleeting relationships from that. Nothing since, including Facebook, has had that same immediacy.

Tinder is kind of like that? Wechat has something similar in China. I worked at a messaging company, and I found out those kind of 'unsolicited date messaging' features are a really good way to scare away your female users pretty quickly.

ICQ happened to figure something out - girls wrote boys as well, I remember getting messages from strangers as often as initiating those.

Anyway, it was more about talking than about romantic relationship. Not many people expected to ever meet their virtual friends.

You can definitely ruin that, for example, if you do not randomize well enough and a small subset of user base gets too much attention.

Re: ICQ: 20 Years Is No Limit

#110

Post by sebtoast »

rbinv wrote: post #46
j2bax wrote: post #35

Did anyone else used to "hack" people on ICQ? If I recall correctly, ICQ would expose users IP address if they didn't intentionally hide it. My friend and I would get to chatting with strangers and then exchange photos... Only ours wasn't a photo, it was something that opened a backdoor into their computer that would allow us to take over their PC. We never did anything harmful but might have gotten a few people in t…

Sounds like SubSeven.

I commented on using Back Orifice but Sub7 was another one we used.

If I remember correctly BO didn't have a GUI until they (Cult of the dead Cow) updated it to BO2k so it was easier for us kids to use Sub7.

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