Back in 1998 when I was 13 years old I got heavily involved in the AOL hacking scene, originally building add-on software called progs (Revolution, Meridian), publishing code libraries called bas files (Alpha32), and later co-founding AOL-Files.com (where I went by the hacker alias Tau), which became a massive community and educational resource for folks interested in that scene.
These experiences got me hooked on programming and building products which has had a huge impact on my life that continues to this day.
Recently Steve Stonebraker, creator of the AOL Underground podcast, reached out to see if I was interested in being interviewed about that time period. I jumped at the chance.
For anyone interested in hearing me reminisce about the good ‘ol days of AOL hacking, you can listen to the full interview here: Tau – Co-creator of AOL-Files.com. We cover how I got started building progs, co-founding AOL-Files, many of the major exploits that followed, and much more.
Matt Mazur 
Revolution – Matt Mazur
Meridian – Matt Mazur
nice! brought back some cool memories
It was fun fun doing the interview – brought back so many memories that I haven’t thought of in almost two decades.
That screen shot is awesome. Kinda makes me a little sad, life was so different back then. I think most of us would agree that if we could relive that time period and do all of that again, we most certainly would! Thanks Tau for keeping AOL memories alive and the AOL Underground Podcast and Tonyshowoff.
DUDE! I just googled “dos32 aol bas file” and found your site. My mind is blown that your site has been updated May of this year. I haven’t even listened to the podcast yet because I was just fucking FLOORED that any sort of community still exists in regards to the “aol prog scene” or whatever you want to call it. I coded MULTIPLE progz back in the day… gundam pwc for aol7, megatron c com… I honestly can’t even remember all the names of them because it felt like a lifetime ago. Do you keep in touch with anyone from back then? I know the group was bigger / had it’s cliches but like wow…
Thanks for saying hey, it always makes my day when folks from that scene drop a comment.
You should totally check out the RE-AOL community which has a lot of folks there from back in the day: https://lunduke.substack.com/p/re-aol-a-reverse-engineered-aol-30