6 ms·

I can still recall the little rush I'd get when that 14.4KBS modem would get a handshake and the lines of green characters would start scrolling down the old CR

I can still recall the little rush I'd get when that 14.4KBS modem would get a handshake and the lines of green characters would start scrolling down the old CRT screen... Good times.

optionalparens 10y ago
14.4? Slow down there, friend, we lucky people were using Hayes 300 baud modems. I still remember my glorious upgrade path: 300->2400 (now we're cooking)->4800->9600->14.4->19.2->28.8->56k USR, Courrier, and Hayes were usually the best ones for me. I skipped 33.6 among other upgrades. The Courrier also had that extra punch if you were lucky enough to get one on the other end. The Unix stuff was pretty pedestrian as far as programs, but on Dos, Windows, Amiga, Atari ST, C64, and some others, some cool programs for connecting. I think on Dos I remember using Terminix and Telix quite a bit, but the names mostly escape me by now. Anyway, I guess now it's better I don't have to dial with options like *70 or use the various AT codes to get online, handshake, and stay there.
- axonic 10y ago
  acoustic coupled modems anyone?
  - optionalparens 10y ago
    We had a bunch of these bastards at work and at various universities local to me. I seem to recall them all hating each other and many not conforming properly to the standards. Dial and pray. Still sometimes find these, but more often the 9600-56k more modern ranges in random server rooms and offices, still running all kinds of things that no one understands or wants to touch. If I didn't hate consulting so much now, I thought about going into this at some point to charge breakneck prices to do archaeology for these companies. I'd feel bad though replacing or touching such beauty, not to mention they often are the backbone of many businesses so that's why they are so paranoid to go near.
  - losteverything 10y ago
    Yes. My first connection from high school to the town's university computer system. The high school teacher was later (the following September) in my freshman comp sci class learning assembler. Very strange to have your math teacher (doubled as computer teacher) in class with you.
  - nsxwolf 10y ago
    I'd love to show my kids how mine worked - there's a few dial up BBSes out there still - but I don't have a landline and I've only heard bad things about attempting to use a modem over a VOIP service... and there's the little problem of plugging an old telephone into a PC to access that VOIP service in the first place.
    - rasz_pl 10y ago
      there you go http://www.whence.com/minimodem/ http://www.whence.com/minimodem/
      - nsxwolf 10y ago
        Looks good, but I want to physically connect the landline phone as an audio device too... that solution seems elusive. I could probably assemble a circuit to do it, though I'm not sure I could design one. I have this Linksys VOIP router that I used to use on my old landline to interface with an Asterisk server, but I don't think the firmware supports this use case.
        rasz_pl 10y ago
        two laptops next to each other will work fine for a presentation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpaD0BX9yZM&t=16m53s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpaD0BX9yZM&t=16m53s
  - DanBC 10y ago
    It's a bit grimy, but: http://m.imgur.com/JTwCqyy http://m.imgur.com/JTwCqyy That's an A4 piece of paper for scale.
    - axonic 10y ago
      Awesome!
- Doctor_Fegg 10y ago
  And 1200/75 (download/upload) for a while- very popular in the UK.
- LarryMade2 10y ago
  Heh I remember one friend boasting about getting a super fast 28.8k modem (the one with the better protocol - IIRC there were two competing compression schemes for 28.8k) Paid only a few hundred for it instead of the about $700 new. That would have been around 1994ish, he was an Amiga user.
nikatwork 10y ago
"Please, he prayed, now - A gray disk, the color of Chiba sky."
- cassm 10y ago
  "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel." Which of course now means a clear, deep blue.
themodelplumber 10y ago
Back in around 1994 I remember dialing into BBSes that had these amazing UIs drawn with vector graphics. Can't remember the software name (local BBSes could use it, not like e.g. Prodigy), but holy cow it was cool, compared to the regular text-based or even ANSI stuff I was used to.
- Sanddancer 10y ago
  Are you thinking of RIP? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_Imaging_Protocol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_Imaging_Protocol
- fungos 10y ago
  RIP Script [1]. Some samples [2]. Comments and Specs [3]. Video of a RIP rendering [4]. RIP Editor [5]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_Imaging_Protocol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_Imaging_Protocol [2] http://archives.thebbs.org/ra108a.htm http://archives.thebbs.org/ra108a.htm [3] http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/library/PROGRAMS/GRAPHICS/RIPSCRIPT/ http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/library/PROGRAMS/GRAPHICS/RIPS... [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtWmPO-cLR8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtWmPO-cLR8 [5] http://picoe.ca/products/pablodraw/ http://picoe.ca/products/pablodraw/
- optionalparens 10y ago
  You can find some RIP files in some of the old ansi packs from the 90s. Acid, ICE, Dark (I think) and some others (Union?) all had RIP at least for awhile. It's been too long and I only did ANSI and ASCII art in those times, though I knew plenty of people that did RIP art. Anyway, check http://sixteencolors.net/ http://sixteencolors.net/

I can still recall the little rush I'd get when that 14.4KBS modem would get a handshake and the lines of green characters would start scrolling down the old CRT screen... Good times.

optionalparens 10y ago

14.4? Slow down there, friend, we lucky people were using Hayes 300 baud modems. I still remember my glorious upgrade path: 300->2400 (now we're cooking)->4800->9600->14.4->19.2->28.8->56k USR, Courrier, and Hayes were usually the best ones for me. I skipped 33.6 among other upgrades. The Courrier also had that extra punch if you were lucky enough to get one on the other end. The Unix stuff was pretty pedestrian as far as programs, but on Dos, Windows, Amiga, Atari ST, C64, and some others, some cool programs for connecting. I think on Dos I remember using Terminix and Telix quite a bit, but the names mostly escape me by now. Anyway, I guess now it's better I don't have to dial with options like *70 or use the various AT codes to get online, handshake, and stay there.

axonic 10y ago
acoustic coupled modems anyone?
- optionalparens 10y ago
  We had a bunch of these bastards at work and at various universities local to me. I seem to recall them all hating each other and many not conforming properly to the standards. Dial and pray. Still sometimes find these, but more often the 9600-56k more modern ranges in random server rooms and offices, still running all kinds of things that no one understands or wants to touch. If I didn't hate consulting so much now, I thought about going into this at some point to charge breakneck prices to do archaeology for these companies. I'd feel bad though replacing or touching such beauty, not to mention they often are the backbone of many businesses so that's why they are so paranoid to go near.
- losteverything 10y ago
  Yes. My first connection from high school to the town's university computer system. The high school teacher was later (the following September) in my freshman comp sci class learning assembler. Very strange to have your math teacher (doubled as computer teacher) in class with you.
- nsxwolf 10y ago
  I'd love to show my kids how mine worked - there's a few dial up BBSes out there still - but I don't have a landline and I've only heard bad things about attempting to use a modem over a VOIP service... and there's the little problem of plugging an old telephone into a PC to access that VOIP service in the first place.
  - rasz_pl 10y ago
    there you go http://www.whence.com/minimodem/ http://www.whence.com/minimodem/
    - nsxwolf 10y ago
      Looks good, but I want to physically connect the landline phone as an audio device too... that solution seems elusive. I could probably assemble a circuit to do it, though I'm not sure I could design one. I have this Linksys VOIP router that I used to use on my old landline to interface with an Asterisk server, but I don't think the firmware supports this use case.
      - rasz_pl 10y ago
        two laptops next to each other will work fine for a presentation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpaD0BX9yZM&t=16m53s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpaD0BX9yZM&t=16m53s
- DanBC 10y ago
  It's a bit grimy, but: http://m.imgur.com/JTwCqyy http://m.imgur.com/JTwCqyy That's an A4 piece of paper for scale.
  - axonic 10y ago
    Awesome!
Doctor_Fegg 10y ago
And 1200/75 (download/upload) for a while- very popular in the UK.
LarryMade2 10y ago
Heh I remember one friend boasting about getting a super fast 28.8k modem (the one with the better protocol - IIRC there were two competing compression schemes for 28.8k) Paid only a few hundred for it instead of the about $700 new. That would have been around 1994ish, he was an Amiga user.

nikatwork 10y ago

"Please, he prayed, now - A gray disk, the color of Chiba sky."

cassm 10y ago
"The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel." Which of course now means a clear, deep blue.

themodelplumber 10y ago

Back in around 1994 I remember dialing into BBSes that had these amazing UIs drawn with vector graphics. Can't remember the software name (local BBSes could use it, not like e.g. Prodigy), but holy cow it was cool, compared to the regular text-based or even ANSI stuff I was used to.

Sanddancer 10y ago
Are you thinking of RIP? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_Imaging_Protocol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_Imaging_Protocol
fungos 10y ago
RIP Script [1]. Some samples [2]. Comments and Specs [3]. Video of a RIP rendering [4]. RIP Editor [5]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_Imaging_Protocol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_Imaging_Protocol [2] http://archives.thebbs.org/ra108a.htm http://archives.thebbs.org/ra108a.htm [3] http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/library/PROGRAMS/GRAPHICS/RIPSCRIPT/ http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/library/PROGRAMS/GRAPHICS/RIPS... [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtWmPO-cLR8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtWmPO-cLR8 [5] http://picoe.ca/products/pablodraw/ http://picoe.ca/products/pablodraw/
optionalparens 10y ago
You can find some RIP files in some of the old ansi packs from the 90s. Acid, ICE, Dark (I think) and some others (Union?) all had RIP at least for awhile. It's been too long and I only did ANSI and ASCII art in those times, though I knew plenty of people that did RIP art. Anyway, check http://sixteencolors.net/ http://sixteencolors.net/