The first connection to the internet that I ever had was through a 300 BPS modem that someone sold to me for a dollar at a flea market.
I didn’t believe it would really work so I took the family computer and opened it up and slapped it in, ran a telephone line into it and then, not really knowing what the hell I was doing and not knowing any numbers to dial to connect, I searched through the white pages and stumbled upon a local BBS that was still in operation.
I dialed that bad boy up and it fucking connected and to this day I cannot sufficiently relate the aheer Joy of watching my dinky little home computer talk to another computer dozens of miles away.
Every single character that slowly appeared on the screen was another shot of dopamine to my fragile young psyche.
About a month later, I got my hands on a 14.4 kbps modem and the speed boost almost made me jizz in my pants.
Teenage me was in love and I have been in love ever since.
You went from a 300bps to 14.4k?? lol I’m surprised you lived through that experience
Yep. The first MP3 I was able to download took like 45 minutes. Toms diner ftw.
Can this really be from 1982, or was it a typo and you meant 1992?
If there were modem ads already in '82, that would blow my mind. But if it’s 1992, the piece would manage to squeeze into my understanding of the internet’s history.Nobody would be interested in a 1200 baud modem in 1992. 9600 baud was pretty much the standard at that point and 14.4k happened later that year, which became incredibly widespread.
Definitely 1982.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayes_Microcomputer_Products
It’s official, then: ∑(ʘдʘ)
(that’s supposed to be a “mind blown” text face)When anyone says “internet” and “1982”, my mind sees a primitive, large and cumbersome telephone cradle like the one Matthew Broderick had in War Games and would you like to play a nice game of Global Thermonuclear Warfare?
Yep the acoustic couplers. WarGames is from 83.
https://www.cio.com/article/220297/the-technology-of-wargames.html?amp=1
The modem David Lightman used to connect his computer to the outside world, as seen here and in the movie, was an IMSAI 212A. In reality though, it was only labeled that way for the movie. IMSAI never actually produced or sold such a modem. What was actually used in the movie was a Cermetek 212A modem, which could communicate at 1200 (!) baud.
Back in the day before computer modems could be directly connected to a phone line, phone handsets were placed in acoustic couplers connected to a computer, in order to convert sounds to electrical signals (and vice versa). In WarGames, an acoustic coupler is used prominently by David Lightman. Ironically, though, it wasn’t actually needed since his ISMAI (er, Cermetek) 212A modem didn’t need a coupler. It was included purely for the visual effect. Ahh, movie magic!
I owned a 2400 modem in 1986, so this is definitely from the '80s. I used to be able to read text as it came in.
Had one of these.
Me too.
opens mouth squelches into the void
If it weren’t for the fact that I work in a professional setting I would set my ringtone to be the dial-up noise.
This sounds like a great idea!😁
Look at Mr fancy pants over here with the 1200 baud modem!
“Hello professor, do you want to play a game?”
now do a usr courier hst (my first big $ modem).
<sigh>
I still have my Dual Standard one somewhere, was 16800 i think and upgraded the board in it a couple times to bring it up to 56k eventually. It was a beauty. I think it was like $800? An insane amount of money in hindsight, but worth every penny at the time.
Yep. That price is accurate. Was about the same cost as a 20meg hd at the time. I think that by the time 56k was a thing, I just bought one of their fugly, smaller-sized off-white models.
I wonder how well these would work over today’s VOIP lines. AT&T and my local phone company don’t sell wired lines any more in my area. All I could get is a VOIP line.
Modems over VOIP are terrible due to sound compression.
You could make it work though https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7mqkTFq7Ekg
