FYI: 25th Anniversary of Ward Christensen's BBS - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

20 Feb 2003

But note that the Climet claim is qualified by "a box in which a phone
handset could be placed". How were the Bell modems interfaced?

-----Original Message-----
From: Eric Smith [mailto:eric@brouhaha.com]
Sent: Thursday, February 20, 2003 2:16 PM
To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org
Cc: allain(a)panix.com
Subject: Re: FYI: 25th Anniversary of Ward Christensen's BBS

I wrote about (binary) data transfer by modem:
...
 > At least as early as 1965 IBM sold equipment that
could do this, 
John Allain wrote:
...
  Some more date/a:
 ""the first model of the first commercial modem," a box in which a phone
  handset could be placed, allowing a computer to say "beep beep" to
 another over long distances. Lee was almost right. He actually had the
 second model of the "magnetic/acoustic coupler," manufactured for
 Tymshare, Inc. by Climet Instruments about 1966"
    --
 http://membres.inforoots.org/dguardiola/Lee_Felsenstein/CMP-mails.htm 
The Bell 103A modem was introduced in 1962.  I suspect that it was the
first commercial modem.

The date that's harder to place is when the 103A was first used for
computer-to-computer data transfer, as opposed to teletype-to-teletype
or teletype-to-computer communication.