4 ms·

It's fun to look around at the limits in terms of how long it'd take you to do it with a 56k modem. 250GB, which they consider pretty high, would actually take

by dlsspy 16y ago

It's fun to look around at the limits in terms of how long it'd take you to do it with a 56k modem. 250GB, which they consider pretty high, would actually take a while: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=250GB+%2F+56Kbps http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=250GB+%2F+56Kbps But smaller values are less impressive. 10GB is only half a modem month. Looking at the $1/GB thing gets more interesting. How much would it cost me to run a 54Kbps modem 24/7 for a month at $1/GB: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%2856Kbps+*+1+month%29+*+%241%2FGB http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%2856Kbps+*+1+month%29+...

coderdude 16y ago
You're forgetting, or maybe just never used a modem (some people ask what the hell a floppy is), but the max speed you could squeeze out of a 56k was like 3/4kbps for any single download. That's if you were lucky. You would never, ever have transfered so much as 10gb in a month. Things sure have changed. I remember praying to the modem gods that the connection wouldn't simply drop when downloading something as small as 200kb. The good ol' days -- you made every moment on the net count. http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=10GB+/+3Kbps http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=10GB+/+3Kbps 10 months. Edit: What I just linked to above was incorrect. I should have used kilobytes per second, not kilobits per second.
- pilif 16y ago
  the 56k stands for 56KBit/s. What you were seeing was 3.5 KByte/s which of course is still way off the theoretical 7 KByte/s you could achieve with 56KBit/s. If you only got 3 KBit/s over a 56K modem, your download-rate would have been 375 bytes/s - a third of a Kilobyte per second. That's a bit more than what you could have reached with a 2400 baud modem from the eighties. You get to your 10 months result by dividing the 10 Gigs by 3Kbit/s, while you would probably have ment to divide by Kbyte/s http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=10GB+%2F+3KBps http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=10GB+%2F+3KBps 38 days.
  - coderdude 16y ago
    Thanks for the clarification on my points. I was conflating the two.
  - ams6110 16y ago
    I never once saw more than 48kb/s on any 56kbs modem I ever used (as i recall there were two slightly different implementations at the 56kb/s level, but neither one ever achieved that speed in the real world).
- biot 16y ago
  Are you sure you're not referring to this? http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=56+Kbps+in+KB%2Fs http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=56+Kbps+in+KB%2Fs With 8 bits per byte plus protocol overhead, a good rule of thumb is take the Kbps value and divide by 10 to get a realistic KB/s figure. It's been too long since the BBS/dialup days and I don't recall if some of the later modems implemented on-the-fly compression which would squeeze out even more bandwidth.

by dlsspy 16y ago

coderdude 16y ago

You're forgetting, or maybe just never used a modem (some people ask what the hell a floppy is), but the max speed you could squeeze out of a 56k was like 3/4kbps for any single download. That's if you were lucky. You would never, ever have transfered so much as 10gb in a month. Things sure have changed. I remember praying to the modem gods that the connection wouldn't simply drop when downloading something as small as 200kb. The good ol' days -- you made every moment on the net count. http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=10GB+/+3Kbps http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=10GB+/+3Kbps 10 months. Edit: What I just linked to above was incorrect. I should have used kilobytes per second, not kilobits per second.

pilif 16y ago
the 56k stands for 56KBit/s. What you were seeing was 3.5 KByte/s which of course is still way off the theoretical 7 KByte/s you could achieve with 56KBit/s. If you only got 3 KBit/s over a 56K modem, your download-rate would have been 375 bytes/s - a third of a Kilobyte per second. That's a bit more than what you could have reached with a 2400 baud modem from the eighties. You get to your 10 months result by dividing the 10 Gigs by 3Kbit/s, while you would probably have ment to divide by Kbyte/s http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=10GB+%2F+3KBps http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=10GB+%2F+3KBps 38 days.
- coderdude 16y ago
  Thanks for the clarification on my points. I was conflating the two.
- ams6110 16y ago
  I never once saw more than 48kb/s on any 56kbs modem I ever used (as i recall there were two slightly different implementations at the 56kb/s level, but neither one ever achieved that speed in the real world).
biot 16y ago
Are you sure you're not referring to this? http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=56+Kbps+in+KB%2Fs http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=56+Kbps+in+KB%2Fs With 8 bits per byte plus protocol overhead, a good rule of thumb is take the Kbps value and divide by 10 to get a realistic KB/s figure. It's been too long since the BBS/dialup days and I don't recall if some of the later modems implemented on-the-fly compression which would squeeze out even more bandwidth.