5 ms·

32k? Loooxury! We had to bang magnetic rocks together fast enough in order to induce a current on the phone line and we only got 1200 baud and WE LIKED IT. Ser

32k? Loooxury! We had to bang magnetic rocks together fast enough in order to induce a current on the phone line and we only got 1200 baud and WE LIKED IT. Seriously, 32k in the days of shareware? I think the fastest modem I ever saw (in that era, anyway) was 19.2k, and almost nobody had those. Pretty sure I went from 19.2 straight to ADSL.

cmdrfred 10y ago
My mistake 32k was the first I'd used and I downloaded a great deal of shareware at that time. I didn't realise it was dead by then.
- mst 10y ago
  I started off with a 36k and then a 56k modem and remember shareware being significantly involved in my early uses of it (also napster). I think the problem is that, for us, we arrived in the age of shareware via said modems so that was normal to us ... and then those on here older than us started enough earlier that our entire experience was the tail end of theirs when it already "wasn't like it used to be" for them. (I'm 33, maybe that fact will shed some light)
  - ghaff 10y ago
    Shareware was originally very much part of BBS culture (or at least hobbyist PC culture) and was largely set against expensive retail box software that mostly let you, at best, try out limited demo versions. As the Internet/Web and open source merged into the PC world from the Unix world--and it became easier to legitimately trial retail software--shareware largely morphed into just another category of retail software that was sold online.
ghaff 10y ago
>Seriously, 32k in the days of shareware? Yeah, but very latterly. Modems topped out at about 56K (although, in my experience, they rarely connected at that speed). That's the fastest I had before getting broadband in the late 90s. Before that I had 9600 (maybe something else in between), although as I recall there were competing "standards" in the 9600 space.
- sedachv 10y ago
  > Modems topped out at about 56K (although, in my experience, they rarely connected at that speed). 56k modems were actually limited to 53k download and 34k upload: http://www.10stripe.com/articles/why-is-56k-the-fastest-dialup-modem-speed.php http://www.10stripe.com/articles/why-is-56k-the-fastest-dial... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modem#Using_digital_lines_and_PCM_.28V.90.2F92.29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modem#Using_digital_lines_and_...

cmdrfred 10y ago

My mistake 32k was the first I'd used and I downloaded a great deal of shareware at that time. I didn't realise it was dead by then.

mst 10y ago
I started off with a 36k and then a 56k modem and remember shareware being significantly involved in my early uses of it (also napster). I think the problem is that, for us, we arrived in the age of shareware via said modems so that was normal to us ... and then those on here older than us started enough earlier that our entire experience was the tail end of theirs when it already "wasn't like it used to be" for them. (I'm 33, maybe that fact will shed some light)
- ghaff 10y ago
  Shareware was originally very much part of BBS culture (or at least hobbyist PC culture) and was largely set against expensive retail box software that mostly let you, at best, try out limited demo versions. As the Internet/Web and open source merged into the PC world from the Unix world--and it became easier to legitimately trial retail software--shareware largely morphed into just another category of retail software that was sold online.

ghaff 10y ago

>Seriously, 32k in the days of shareware? Yeah, but very latterly. Modems topped out at about 56K (although, in my experience, they rarely connected at that speed). That's the fastest I had before getting broadband in the late 90s. Before that I had 9600 (maybe something else in between), although as I recall there were competing "standards" in the 9600 space.

sedachv 10y ago
> Modems topped out at about 56K (although, in my experience, they rarely connected at that speed). 56k modems were actually limited to 53k download and 34k upload: http://www.10stripe.com/articles/why-is-56k-the-fastest-dialup-modem-speed.php http://www.10stripe.com/articles/why-is-56k-the-fastest-dial... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modem#Using_digital_lines_and_PCM_.28V.90.2F92.29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modem#Using_digital_lines_and_...