Dialtone

A messenger like the ones I grew up with, running on a small computer at home.

Why I built it

I first got online in 1995, in the days of the original MSN. After that came MSN Messenger. A nudge, a song in your status, a chat room full of strangers, and a profile page you could make look like anything. I missed all of that and couldn't find anything that felt like it.

Most messengers now are owned by big companies and built to keep you looking at the screen. I wanted one that just lets you talk to people.

So I built one. I'm not a professional programmer. I had an AI account I wasn't getting much out of, and I wanted to see whether it could be done. It can.

It's all the things I want in an app. If anyone else wants them too, that's a bonus.

What it looks like

The contact list window: a green dot beside an online friend, with the song they're listening to next to their name. — Your contacts, who's online, and what they're listening to.

A conversation window with a friend, including a nudge and a thumbs-up emoticon. — One-to-one chat, with emoticons and the nudge.

A chat room called The Lobby, with a member list, a topic bar and whispers. — Chat rooms, in the style of the old Windows chat programs.

It runs in the browser and as an app on Windows and Android, so it works on a phone too. The people shown here are made-up test accounts.

Dialtone on a phone, showing the contact list. — The same thing on a phone.

Your own page, MySpace-style: themes, colours, a background picture, even your own style rules.

What it does

Contacts with online status and a personal message under your name.
One-to-one chats with emoticons, text styles and nudges.
Public chat rooms with moderators, whispers and topics.
A profile page of your own in the spirit of MySpace: pick a theme, set your own colours and background, add photos, a blog and a song, and friends can sign your guestbook.
A line showing the song you're playing, if you choose to share it.

There are no adverts, no tracking, and nothing is sold. You can only join if someone invites you.

Run your own

You don't need a data centre. Dialtone is small enough to run on a Raspberry Pi, a credit-card-sized computer. This is what it takes:

Raspberry Pi 4 and power supply€84.38

Memory card to store everythingabout €10

Network cable (mine came with the router)€0

Totalabout €95

You plug the cable into your router, plug in the power, and it runs. It uses about as much electricity as a night light, under €10 a year.

The €84.38 is what I paid in February 2024, and prices move around. If you want friends outside your home to reach it, you'll also need a web address, which costs about €10 to €15 a year.

Setting it up is a set of steps to follow, so it helps if you're comfortable with a command line. Making it easier is something I'd like to do.

How it's built

Plain JavaScript on both sides, with a small database file on the Pi. The Windows and Android apps use the same screens as the browser version. I built it with a lot of help from Claude, an AI assistant, and I'm happy to say so.

The server can also run without the music side, as a simple messenger and chat rooms. On my own server it has an internet radio too, but that stays with friends I trust.

One small place, not a big network

Dialtone isn't one giant service. Each server is its own small place, run by whoever set it up, and people on different servers can't talk to each other. If you want servers that can all talk to each other, look at Matrix or XMPP. Dialtone is for a group of friends who want a place of their own.

Join

Dialtone is invitation only, so there's no sign-up form. If you know me, ask me for an invite.