35 year old modem connecting to the Internet

[Sceadwian]

They just don't make stuff like this anymore.
35 years old and still good as new.
YouTube - 1964 Antique MODEM Live Demo

 

[HarveyH42]

I read about this the other day, reminded me of High School computer class. Personal computers were just coming onto the market (TRS-80, Apple...), but we had Teletype terminals with 300 baud acoustical modems. Pretty slow going, but we also shared the same Data General computer with most of the other schools and colleges in the state. Can't imagine what it would be like browsing the internet at 300 baud, or downloading a couple meg data sheet. 2400 baud on my old Commodore 64 BBS was pretty damn slow.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

My first modem was 300 baud, I made it from a Maplin kit - it's all the speed there was back then.

 

[Sceadwian]

Back then those speeds were fine, the Internet wasn't even a fraction as data rich as it is today. Just for giggles I did the math, a 1 meg file would take 9.7 hours to download, and that doesn't even include TCP/IP overhead =\

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Back then those speeds were fine, the Internet wasn't even a fraction as data rich as it is today. Just for giggles I did the math, a 1 meg file would take 9.7 hours to download, and that doesn't even include TCP/IP overhead =\

Except there wasn't any internet available to the public - it came years later.

I must admit I was VERY disappointed with internet speeds when I first got it, previously using BBS's you could download all your emails and news articles as a single zipped file at decent speeds. Come the internet, and emails and news just dribbles in - even now with broadband it's not terribly fast.

 

[Sceadwian]

I'm not sure how you can say with broadband now is not terribly fast, in relation to what, being able to download in 1-10 seconds the same amount of data that took 10 hours?

 

[ericgibbs]

I'm not sure how you can say with broadband now is not terribly fast, in relation to what, being able to download in 1-10 seconds the same amount of data that took 10 hours?

In Japan they have 100Meg broadband, in relative terms, yours is slooooooooow.!

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

I'm not sure how you can say with broadband now is not terribly fast, in relation to what, being able to download in 1-10 seconds the same amount of data that took 10 hours?

The download of emails and news is still far slower, with BBS's you had a single connection to the external computer, and you weren't hampered by networking constraints. You entire emails and news could be downloaded as one single zipped file, and usually only took a few seconds - now a single email takes longer than that.

Downloading large files is an entirely different affair, it's not the link that's slow, it's the source of your emails and newsgroups - plus the fact you're using a bloated OS and GUI, instead of a fast DOS text only system.

 

[killivolt]

Funny. I wrote a story involving a modem like this 30 yrs ago. I mentioned the story to one of my co-workers at the University they are professional writer editors and they asked if I would bring it to them.

When it mentioned the modem and how it used the phone. They were confused.

Now I can show them.

Thanks for taking me for a ride in the "waybackthere - machine".


kv

 

[mramos1]

Ahh, let's date ourselves.

I ran a BBS on a TRS-80 model I with 16K of dynamic RAM (yes that is a K) and with the Hayes Stack 300 baud modems. I had 4 lines I paid for so everyone in the area could network/play. It was a 4K unit I stacked chips for more RAM space.

I wrote the BBS in ASM and ROM BASIC. I called my RS232 drivers from ROM BASIC and ran my floppy file system as well (before that your had to load off tape and run from RAM). Before Bill Gates was around and invented it all and thank goodness Al Gore jumped in and made the Internet .

I recall the clunk sound the floppy (Seagate) drive made at night. People had to wait for someone get off a line to get online when all four were in use. Not like we have today for sure. I miss the old days.

Also, I used what is now called or became the Internet, "but" I worked with the US .GOV back then. I used it for email and ftp at the day job. But it was not open to the public (far as they know). So there was no Internet back then.

I can not believe we are still running on the old TCP/IP and UDP and the email system today but it is making a lot of people money.

 

[gabeNC]

The first time I remember seeing one of those TRS-80's... I was in 4th grade.

 

[tcmtech]

The apple IIe was my first introduction to computers.
Then the Mac classic came out about the time I graduated.
I did not get on line stuff until college the next year. (1994)

 

[rmn_tech]

I still remember my first "computer" A Sinclair ZX80 "Not the ZX81" With a full 1k of usable RAM in 1978.

 

[mramos1]

I still remember my first "computer" A Sinclair ZX80 "Not the ZX81" With a full 1k of usable RAM in 1978.

Sometimes I think I would rather have an 8080 than what I have today but I have to make a living. Did the Timex version come later?

All the bloat, viri, bugs, spam. You have less bugs and bloat in that small amount of ROM/RAM and no spam. Maybe that is why I like the microcontrollers so much.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Sometimes I think I would rather have an 8080 than what I have today but I have to make a living. Did the Timex version come later?

Timex was the name used in the USA for the UK made Sinclair computers.

Personally I built a Microtan Tangerine, a modular 6502 based kit computer (which I still have) - it was the same time as the ZX80, before the ZX81.

 

[dknguyen]

Sometimes I think I would rather have an 8080 than what I have today but I have to make a living. Did the Timex version come later?

All the bloat, viri, bugs, spam. You have less bugs and bloat in that small amount of ROM/RAM and no spam. Maybe that is why I like the microcontrollers so much.

Of course, it is human nature to pay extra attention to all the bad things that come with something and forget about all the good things. THat's not to say that the bad things can be a major pain.

 

[mramos1]

Of course, it is human nature to pay extra attention to all the bad things that come with something and forget about all the good things. THat's not to say that the bad things can be a major pain.

I thought I added it makes a lot of people money out there, but I guess I forgot that part. I do normally point that out.

 

[sleekyG]

Wow. I almost didn't believed it. I am still not in this world when they did that Modem and now it is still working? How did it happened?