It just appeared to me that I could tell you here what it is that I am currently working on.

With two other people I have began reviving the old WAP! We are working on making those old phones useful again!
So, it all began with one person who was fed up with smartphones, and felt the need to make those "dumb phones" useful again so they can once more be a proper alternative to those pesky smartphones. That person decided then to revive WAP, created a Github repository including resources.

So I created a WML website with some of the content on my main site, and I created WapL Translate, I started gathering old Nokias and other GSM phones. (Is there a word in English for pre-iphone phones?)

Here is a photo of three Nokias displaying a WAP-site!


We are also experimenting with ancient network options, and I found out that in the Netherlands the provider Vodafone still supports CSD, which has been shut down almost everywhere!
At the same time, it looks like they do not support SMS messages with an UDH.

So yeah, this is my current new obsession, and I think it might be fun to share my experiences about it in this thread!

Today I obtained a Nokia 7110, one of the very few phones that support the use of WAP over SMS bearer!

Okay, time for an update!

Quite some time has passed since I wrote above post, and for some time I have not been doing much with the revival. But that does not mean nothing has happened. I have very recently begun again getting myself into old GSM phones again, because someone asked me to give info on how to use an old Nokia instead of a smartphone with like still being able to have OTP codes and such.
Because, yes, there are J2ME programs for that!

So, what has been brought back so far?
Well, WAP-over-SMS is back. (only for EU phone numbers, and at the moment only for Belgian numbers, because the German sim has issues at the moment.) I have showed some people how it works, that I have internet on a phone from 1999 (Nokia 7110), and they did not have the patience to wait till the page was loaded. Because through SMS is a very slow way to have internet access, compared to what we are now used to. I love it.
I have begun making the poems of Lewis Carroll available on the WAP. Where I have to create multiple files, because different phones have different page size limits and I have to accommodate that.
This week I have done some programming again to create a WAP page where one can see the current disruptions on the Dutch railways.

Another part of the revival effort is, for me at least, trying to see what J2ME programs are out there that are still useful. We have a long list of files that have at some point been archived, it's a really long list and a lot of it does not work. Yet then there still are some programs that work quite well, which is great!
Sometimes there turn out to be WAP pages that are still online, which is every time we find one a great surprise! Though sometimes the contents are a bit disappointing.

I have also started an effort to create more Nokia ringtones, from mediaeval tunes! For this I have found the specs for Nokia polyphonic MIDI files with how to create a vibra channel so you can also control the vibration pattern. That was a great find! Together with an ancient program to create the actual SP-MIDI file, I have been able to create multiple ringtones already!

There is now also a WAP search engine, W@PFind!

And what might be the most exciting news is that it is possible to have WAP access over Meshcore! See this toot on Mastodon.

And then to finish this post with my current phone collection stats, I have:
16 Nokias, 12 different models. Nearly all of them confirmed to be working and without sim-lock.
7 Siemens phones, 6 different models. four of them with sim-lock that I have not yet been able to remove, because I do not have a datacable. They do all seem to work. Some with very poor battery.
3 Samsungs, all of them different. Two broken. The other simlocked. Also no datacable.
2 Sony Ericssons, both different. At least one working, both with dead battery. I do have a datacable for those, though!
2 Ericssons, the same model. Only one battery and that is a dead one. This is the A2618s, which I really want to test for WAP-over-SMS availability.
1 NEC, with dead battery.
1 Sharp, without battery.
1 Alcatel, without battery.
So that's a total of 33 phones!
I do really need datacables, though...