26 Oct
2000
26 Oct
'00
11:38 p.m.
On a recent surplus hunt, I picked up an Anderson
Jacobson
ADC 300 baud acoustic coupler modem for $1. What a beauty - it's
in a wooden box with a flip-top lid and a brushed aluminum
interior panel. It has two DB-25 connectors, but one is used
to feed *in* the AC power (!). I haven't disassembled it yet.
I did a quick web search and one turns up in Megan Gentry's
collection. How old is this? It's serial number 759.
Those are rather rare, in fact, it matches what I recall being
described as the first A-J model. I have a later one that'd
been through a flood and may be hosed; I paid $250 for it in
1980! It would go up to 600 baud using the Bell 202a encoding.
I learned how to whistle the carrier tone by playing with it.
I could not only whistle the carrier, but with a little
modulation, I could get garbage to display on the screen of
a connected terminal. Kept trying to learn to whistle "Hello"
but whistling ASCII ain't whistlin' Dixie...
;-)
-dq