2 ms·

before 1987, really. When 1200 bps modems were released and the standard for that finalized, the 300 bps were a lot less costly and occupied the low end of the

before 1987, really. When 1200 bps modems were released and the standard for that finalized, the 300 bps were a lot less costly and occupied the low end of the market. At the point that 1200 and 2400 bps modems became available, most everyone who could afford it in the BBS communities upgraded. By 1992 a 2400 bps modem was a very low cost ISA card for a normal x86 PC and commonly included with most desktop PCs sold.

sokoloff 4y ago
My first paid programming gig was $20 for an Atari BASIC USR function (a way to call machine code from BASIC) to compute the XModem checksum for a block. Doing it in BASIC was fast enough for a 300 baud modem, but introduced a noticeable delay for a 1200 baud modem. That $20 came to right something around $1/byte. Imagine if we got $1/byte for a node project or Win32 app nowadays... :)