US-based ISP America On-Line (AOL) will finally turn off its dialup Internet service at the end of September <https://www.tomshardware.com/service-providers/network-providers/aol-will-end-dial-up-internet-service-in-september-34-years-after-its-debut-aol-shield-browser-and-aol-dialer-software-will-be-shuttered-on-the-same-day>, ending 34 years of operation. AOL was the biggest ISP in the US back in dialup days, but somehow never made a successful transition to broadband service like everyone else. Another peculiarity was that, unlike ISPs everywhere else in the world who offered their dialup service via standard protocols like SLIP (early days) or PPP (the most common later), AOL always stuck to its own proprietary protocol. The company was also infamous for loosing vast numbers of its sign-up CDs on the world via magazines, free mailouts and so on, in an effort to drum up business. There were endless jokes about what to do with this deluge of unwanted AOL CDs.