Hello Dialers, it’s Black Friday and soon Cyber Weekend! And yes, I have an even better deal than the Thanksgiving Warmup Promotion. First, is a Buy 2 Dad Hats for $54.99 (which excludes beanies). So mix and match your internet history away. The second deal is Buy 3 Dad Hats & get a FREE Beanie on me!
Only caveat is the bundles app is a bit rigid, so I recommend going to the product listing of a hat you’d want and you’ll see the bundle option above the add to cart button. For the free beanie, add 3 dad hats and it’ll pop. Here’s the link to the dad hats collection.
That’s enough of my own sponsoring. Hope everyone’s been having good hauls, I’ve personally bought an 8 BitDo Pro 3 Controller, after having used the previous SN30 controller since 2019.
Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade 2025
It’s the fourth issue of The Dialup Log! While I do not have much photos to show, I have a bunch of brainstorming screenshots from Figma and Illustrator. This is November 2025 / Issue 4 and I have been getting a lot of ideas & indirect requests.
For those who’ve just joined the newsletter, in The Dialup Log I mostly share the behind the desk workings, which are design ideas in the works and research I’ve come a crossed. This week I’ve been going through many small research and drawing board exercises.
Michael from The Dialup Internet
Behind the Desk
Winamp
One hat I did finish the design of but haven’t gotten a sample of is Winamp. Had a nice discussion about how people wanted the Winamp logo without the letters. And I tried to dial down which Winamp icon we were most familiar with. As in which version would’ve been more prevalent in household computers, comparing shortcut icons and the icons on Winamp interface itself.
I mean yes we are familiar with the lightning symbol and the white diamond, but I couldn’t help but notice there was the same lightning with a dark diamond.
Winamp Mockups
The Lightning Symbol
Didn’t see any other hats with a dark diamond background so opted for the dark mode first. Interesting enough if you look carefully at the pixelated symbols from the original software it has a more rounded appearance and less of a sharp border.
Other details I’ve noticed were the lighting on the symbol differs by era as well as the angle of the lightning. I had to choose one and for me getting the Winamp lightning symbol as close as to the 2.8x versions was the direction I took.
Just going over the old sites and rummaging across magazines, I’ve learned that I didn’t really visit winamp.com, originally they had a whole FAQ section and developer wiki type page (under construction) which they scrapped by Winamp 3.0. Other things that were interesting was how many magazines wrote WinAMP as so or WinAmp in the beginning until it just became Winamp. Too bad it sold off to AOL 1999 because by 2005 Winamp’s original team was gone. I left the article here, but it’s interesting how Nullsoft released Gnutella and AOL could’ve embraced it.
Rapid Fire I. INTERNET IN A BOX
Internet in a Box
Internet in a Box, I actually don’t have any recollection of this. From the tad bits here and there it seems to be have been a CompuServe product. Technically, developed by SPRY, which was bought by CompuServe. If you look at this decade old article from Ars Technica on the unboxing of such a time capsule, this all becomes an inception of internet history. What’s interesting for me is the Internet in a Box kit had The Whole Internet User’s Guide Book, which circles back to Dialup’s only t-shirt. Hehe. But yes, I’m working on identifying the font, I’ve come close to the type of family though I’m not satisfied, yet.
Rapid Fire II. LYCOS
LYCOS! Has been a search engine on my mind for quite a while. Similar to the Internet in a Box, I’ve had discussions over this and how this impacted many. Especially the dog, I was confused at first not seeing the dog on LYCOS’ logo from the 90s, but I did have a recollection about the dog.
The different Lycos Expression
As you see these are screen captures of the old versions of the LYCOS website, and the dog was always there next to the search bar. It even had it’s own cute expressions, I especially like the one holding the paper bag.
LYCOS is interesting, as at one point they tried to trademark the search button slogan “Go Get It!” It reminded me of how everything revolved around the dog fetching data for the users in the internet.
What’s awesome is that LYCOS was heavily invested in car racing even sponsoring a race. I mean having a collectible miniature NASCAR racing car?
Though I’m more curious about the right side logo. The LYCOS logotype that we all know uses the Futura family, and it’s more about the dog illustration. On the other hand, the right side logo feels actually futuristic and mysterious. It also looks like Farscape’s logotype.
Rapid Fire III. SiliconGraphics
SiliconGraphics is a whole new level of complexity. Not only is the symbol a 3d rendering, it has so many versions. For each ad SiliconGraphics had, the logo on the ad page also has that many different iterations. It’s never the same. I mean kudos to them, it means that they had a solid brand system because people recognized SiliconGraphics no matter how the logo was presented as long as the pipe cube was there. Not to mention they created one of the most powerful workstation computers that help build groundbreaking games like Donkey Kong Country and Mario 64.
Love this game.
It’s me Mario!
Let’s follow up with SiliconGraphics Ads, I mean they are nice looking ads in my opinion.
Interesting Magazine Ads
I’ve been diving hard to get references for the SiliconGraphics logo and the search gave way to an array of magazine ads. The magazine ads are beautiful. People on the internet find it pleasing too, there is a balance to it. It’s calm, peaceful like there’s a zen to it. And what do you know, Ed McCracken, the CEO of SiliconGraphics from 1987 to 1997 loves to practice and teach meditation up to the point of leading meditation events for employees. And that love probably sipped into the ads.
SiliconGraphics Ads
Until Next Time!
That’s it for this issue, Thanksgiving has been challenging to focus. There’s many things I want to do, and it seems more and more that the management of my own different roles and variety of tasks is required. I’ve been enjoying the conversations with all the people interested in the internet archival hats. I was also surprised that many people enjoyed the narrative of the post below.
I have to admit it was a good change of pace as I’ve been treading closely to the boundary of overwhelm. I mean, I love digging through the old archives, makes me feel like a digital archaeologist discovering diskettes and CDs of memories. And the memories fuel my inspiration in uncovering more relics of my own nostalgia and creating something with it. I’ve been lately thinking about why I’m doing this, using nostalgia as a vehicle of expression. At the core, it’s simply about finding joy by defining my own identity around these nostalgic relics. Pinpointing what has actually shaped me and it’s fun doing a retrospect with these digital artifacts. Also, it just gives me reason to build and write; a creative outlet that helps me be grounded and I hope what I’m building also helps you stay grounded.
As always thanks for reading all the way through! I’ll be signing off! If you ever have questions or suggestions or photos of hats or early internet company gear send me an email at
Just to reassure you, no AI was used to write this. I mean it’s like 3AM right now. Enjoyed every letter I typed in.
And finally, if you would like to support The Dialup Internet, it helps me and this small business immensely if you can write a review, share a photo of the hats, and/or share with people about The Dialup Internet, so that it can keep doing the things it does: finding more archival internet and turn them into archival apparel.