Opening an Internet time capsule—Internet in a Box for Win95

A few days ago, my wife messaged me a photo from a thrift shop with the question, "You want?" The picture was of a box of software still in shrinkwrap—SPRY Inc.'s Internet in a Box for Windows 95.

The answer was an obvious "OMG YES." I reviewed Internet in a Box back in 1993 when it was first released as an early adopter of independent local Internet dialup (using David Troy's Toad.Net). I spent endless hours connected with the software and my very first laptop PC, pulling down Hubble Telescope images from the Space Telescope Science Institute's Gopher server and raging at Usenet posts. Just the sight of the logo caused a wave of nostalgia to wash over me. It was a simpler time, a somewhat less user-friendly time. CompuServe was still a thing.

This particular box of software was, however, especially endearing. I used version 1.0 for several years before Toad.Net partnered with Covad and ran one of Baltimore's very first DSL connections into my house—allowing me to give up the dual ISDN connection I had for my connection to my employer. This was a bundle designed to bring the masses to the Internet, along with their photos, in 1995. Attached to the box was a Seattle FilmWorks one-use 35mm film camera, emblazoned with the CompuServe logo.

Once I had the box in my hands today, it quickly became obvious what I must do: I needed to see if I could install it. (True story: I called the Smithsonian to see if anyone wanted it intact. My voice mail and e-mail went unanswered.) On Wednesday, October 14, I broke the shrink wrap—unleashing a wave of dust and spores that had been held at bay since the Clinton administration. I then set to work documenting the contents. Lee Hutchinson demanded screenshots if I was successful.

Part 1: the unboxing

Part 2: Attempting to enter cyberspace like it's 1995

As it turns out, I do not have a 386 computer with Windows 3.11 or Windows 95 handy in my basement. I wasn't even sure the floppies would be readable—and the only 3.5" floppy drive I have is on my server (thanks, Dell). So even capturing a small part of the Internet in a Box experience was going to be a challenge.

I managed to obtain a copy of a Windows 95 .ISO (since it was the first operating system distribution Microsoft shipped on CD and not as a box of floppies). Unfortunately, the image wasn't bootable, and it required DOS to kickstart the installation. Fortunately, I did have a virtual machine running FreeDOS. The only hurdle remaining was getting the Internet in a Box floppies in a form that I could install on VirtualBox.

WinImage came to the rescue. I installed the disk imaging software on my WIndows server, creating virtual floppy disk images of all five of the installation disks. Yes, even after nearly 20 years sitting in shrinkwrap, these 3.5" HD floppies were still readable. I copied them to a USB and proceeded to install them on my newly-minted Windows 95 virtual machine.

There were two hurdles that remained: I don't have an analog phone line or a modem. Also, I couldn't get Windows 95 to install TCP/IP even though it was on the distribution image—for some reason, Windows 95 demanded "Installation Disk 18." I couldn't even fool the copy of Mosaic in the software bundle into thinking my LAN was a modem.

However, there was a consolation prize: the product tour software bundled with the suite, which in itself is a techno-archaeologist's dream. The "tour" attempts to explain to a 1995 layperson what, exactly, this Internet thing is (just as people now try to explain "cloud").

As soon as I find a cellular modem that I can configure with AT commands from a virtual machine, I'll be surfing up a storm. Of course, not much will actually display properly in Mosaic these days... so I may have to stick to Gopher.