7 Aug
2008
7 Aug
'08
6:56 p.m.
On Thursday 07 August 2008 17:30, Keith M wrote:
I didn't miss the 300 baud era. I remember my
first modem was a "direct
connect" 300bps model sold by radio shack. It had an "answer or
originate" switch, along with a big red button that said "Connect."
Push the button, carrier was activated. No Hayes command set, no ATDT,
no autodialing, nothing. You needed to dial manually, listen for
carrier, push the button, and hang up. I used a 4th-hand pulse phone,
because that's all my parents had to give me.
Mine didn't have that button, just the single switch, to select which mode
you wanted. Some of the numerous BBSs in the Harrisburg area were running
the wrong way, as I recall. There were bunches of them, most run on c64s,
though I know of one on an Apple and one on a CP/M box (from which I now have
the HD external box), and a few on clone hardware, back then.
(Snip)
300 baud was actually fast enough for the majority of
what I did for at
least a couple years. 1200 baud was state of the art -- but many people
still connected at 300 baud. When I later upgraded to an Amiga 500, I
also got a 2400 baud modem which was lightning by comparison. But then
the files got bigger.... I later got a 14.4/16.8k (dual standard,
Courier and HST, anyone remember these?) which was the BOMB --- no one
had anything faster in the early 90's. And then came K56flex and x2,
competing standards........
After the above mentioned 300 I got an Avatex 1200 (non-standard command set
for sure) that had problems, and I was able to get a hold of them and get
them to send me a new processor chip for not all that much -- I think I had
$40 invested in it altogether. Then later on came a Cardinal 2400, a Zoom
14.4 (which got swapped out under warranty when the line relay crapped out
and it wouldn't release the phone line), followed by a few different Courier
modems, 28.8 and 33.6, and one I got a hold of had the flash upgrade for
56K, though they didn't seem to make that widely available to folks. Not
even those of use who purchased under the sysop deal!
I still have all of them. :-)
--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin