High Speed Internet: 2400 baud

[Ghryphen]

Hehe was just reading over an old press release.

http://aroundcny.com/technofile/texts/2400modem88.html

The price reductions are impressive, but the real significance lies in the technololgy that has made it possible. Integrated circuit chips incorporating all the electronic elements of a modem are now being produced in huge quantities for these high-speed modems, which operate at a transmission speed of 2400 baud (about 240 characters per second)

:slow:

[Maz]

:slow:

LOL

[Variable]

Much in the same vein:

http://archives.cbc.ca/IDC-1-75-710-4205/science_technology/computers/

[Maz]

haha, they make it sound so complex, and so weird, yet it was only 10 years ago

[Gambit]

I still have my original 2400 baud modem. It's an external, Zoom brand. Bought it in 1991 just as the 9600 bauds were starting to come out (and so I could get it cheap - $70 mail-order).

And all Zoom modems came with a 7-year warranty.

I remember being a young kid reading CompuServ advertisements and coveting a 300-baud acoustic-coupler modem. :) Those old Timex-Sinclair kits (and just Sinclair before Timex bought 'em). Ah, nostalgia.

[Aluscia]

I wasn't a computer person then.... I probably wasn't even a person then :P

[Maz]

this is stuff that happen just over 10 years ago

[Gambit]

Maz, Laur meant my 300-baud acoustic coupler comment and compu-serv ads. That was twenty years ago. :)

[Maz]

... 20 years ago, yikes, I was barelly born

[Aluscia]

I'm 21, so my comment is accurate.

[Maz]

you would be 1 ;) :) but I was'nt a computer person then either, I would of been 1 also

[Stang]

He's still a little slow today but we still lub 'em :)

[Gambit]

Heh. You young whippersnappers... :)

http://oldcomputers.net/ts1000.html
Sinclair ZX-81. Popular from about 1981-1983. I saw "build-your-own" kits advertised, but didn't have the hundred bucks I needed. The thing came with two whole K of memory, y'know, and half of that was for the display...

http://oldcomputers.net/ti994.html
I did manage to scrape up a couple hundred for a used TI-99/4 - my first computer! - in '81. I was in sixth grade. The first things I bought to go with it were the "Extended Basic" cartridge (more powerful programming), and a dungeon hack game called "Tunnels of Doom," for which modules had to be loaded from tape. I still have the programming manuals for the thing. If you scroll down, you can see the TI-Modem acoustic coupler I was talking about wanting. 300 baud of telecommunicating goodness! I also borrowed the mini-memory cartridge (for assembly programming) and the speech synthesizer at various times.

http://www.atarimagazines.com/compute/index/ Compute! magazine of the early 80's. Source of many CompuServ (and other) ads.

If you guys were born in '83, you share that year with the venerated Commodore 64. I didn't own one of those until '85 or so. Wonderful machine, lots of personality. :)

[Aluscia]

Yeah, I remember inheiriting a Vic20 from someone, and then feeling powerful when I got a Commodore64

[KitZune]

I was a computer person when I was an itch it my dad's testies : D

LONG LIVE RAKURAI!

[Aluscia]

lol.... Why do I smell your computer burning, Kitz?

[Maz]

He's still a little slow today but we still lub 'em :)

I can only process 30 characters per second, I was created 20 years ago

[Gambit]

Maz needs an upgrade. :)

[Maz]

well now that I think about, 30 characters per second is pretty fast, I don't think I can read that fast

[XMEN Iceman[DTM]]

I used a 300 baud acoustic coupler modem, back in high school, OVER 20 YEARS ago. We used it to attach to an HP mainframe to play Space Trader, Star Trek, and hack into the school database. The terminal printed out on paper, no CRT. :)


...AND WE LIKED IT!!!!

[Maz]

was it easier to hack back then? since there was like no security

[Gambit]

I remember reading a news story (I think when I was 14, about '84) about a kid who hacked into the Pentagon with a Vic-20 and a 300 baud modem. Standard at the time was like 2400, Vics were obsolete, etc., but of course he only needed it to emulate a "dumb" terminal, which is simple stuff. Anyway, someone said in the article that the main reason he was caught was that the 300-baud limitation didn't let him cover his tracks fast enough.

In those days, wardialers (a la "Wargames") were fairly common, and phone company 'phreaking' was coming off its peak. Remember Kevin Mitnick? He started much earlier than that, but it took a while to really spread around.

[Maz]

I remember watching a show about phreaking, guys who use to do it when they we're younger, showing how they use to do it, it was pretty good, very interesting