Michael MJD has a video on Escargot, which hosts a server instance that knows how to talk to clients using the MSN protocol (official clients need to be modified, however, so connection attempts don't go to the now defunct servers): https://youtu.be/yrvNyvFwCJg
> official clients need to be modified, however, so connection attempts don't go to the now defunct servers
Presuming they don't use any form of encryption (and I think that's a safe assumption for that era), one could keep the clients official, while routing the packets themselves using a virtual Ethernet driver (or via software-defined routing, if the relevant copy of Windows is running in a VM.)
I set up a local Escargot server for chatting with homestay family kids aged 6 and 9 (too young for having their own email accounts).
They had a LOT of fun with the fonts and animations, dancing pigs and that kind of thing.
The trouble is, Escargot is a real pain to set up. Certificates need to be patched into the hosts file every 30 days. The server must run on Windows 7 x64. The Windows XP client never worked for me; only on Windows 7 x32 and Windows 10.
If I were able to run an Escargot server from my MacBook Pro, that would make it a whole lot more fun. In practice it takes me hours just to set it up, while they'd rather be playing.
Having extensively used MSN in the early 2000s, I bang my head every time I use Skype at work.
How could they make such a terrible IM app after having made MSN? I just don't get it.
