“This Windows 98 computer still uses ICQ in 2026 — not because the original network survived, but because the lab recreates the service the client expects.”
Windows 98 SE→OSCARSupermicro B
Debian 13→Pidgin
modern Linux
Private compatibility service
The Windows 98 machine uses the historical ICQ 2000b client. It does not connect to the original ICQ network. Supermicro B runs a heavily modified service based on mk6i/open-oscar-server that reproduces enough OSCAR behavior for the legacy client and a modern Pidgin client to talk to each other.
The retro PC stays on its own VLAN. Cthulhu can administer the environment; ordinary clients do not need access.
The project started with a physical-layer joke
The private ICQ network grew out of a Friday-to-Sunday experiment whose first memorable failure was much less exotic than protocol archaeology: the Ethernet cable was not connected. That became Field Note #006 — The Forgotten Ethernet Cable.
WRP beside OSCAR
The same Atom server also hosts a locally adjusted Web Rendering Proxy based on tenox7/wrp. The idea is the same: preserve the old client environment, and adapt the modern side around it instead of pretending a 1990s browser should behave like a modern secure endpoint.