4 Jun
2019
4 Jun
'19
6:45 p.m.
Does anyone have any experience working with modems that didn't include
internal / auto dialers?
They came up in a conversation in a newsgroup and I realized that I know
of them, but know virtually nothing about them.
I think they were separate devices, which probably means that they
likely had separate serial ports to talk to each of them. Did they
support some sort of pass through? Or did they really require two
serial ports on the host?
--
Grant. . . .
unix || die
4 Jun
4 Jun
6:49 p.m.
On 6/4/19 9:45 PM, Grant Taylor via cctalk wrote:
Does anyone have any experience working with modems
that didn't include
internal / auto dialers?
They came up in a conversation in a newsgroup and I realized that I know
of them, but know virtually nothing about them.
I think they were separate devices, which probably means that they
likely had separate serial ports to talk to each of them.? Did they
support some sort of pass through?? Or did they really require two
serial ports on the host?
It's been a long time since I saw one (I used to have a bunch
in my collection, actually).
And not all of them were separate. Some were ion a single box.
DEC had some and AT&T and a few third party companies.
bill
7:30 p.m.
On 06/04/2019 09:45 PM, Grant Taylor via cctalk wrote:
Does anyone have any experience working with modems
that didn't include
internal / auto dialers?
Yes,
Novation cat, Hays, and a few others. Dial the phone and put it in the
cradle or flip a switch. Most of the 110/300boaud bel 101 and bell103
modems were "manual".
Keep in mins the hardware for auto dial required some for of micro and
that was a post 1974 thing for the most part. A few before that had a
lot of TTL state machine to do that. They obviously weren't cheap.
They came up in a conversation in a newsgroup and I
realized that I know
of them, but know virtually nothing about them.
I think they were separate devices, which probably means that they
likely had separate serial ports to talk to each of them.? Did they
support some sort of pass through?? Or did they really require two
serial ports on the host?
The dialer was often not at all as it was the human that dialed the phone.
I know of none that did both functions that required a second serial port.
For example the DEC ealy modems required the user to dial the phone and
pushing a button would connect it. THe DEC modem had a protocal was
different from the later ATDT (Hays modems).
My first dial up was 1969, Bell 103 external to the TTY. Later versions
had rotary dial or touch tone and the modem in the TTY stand.
My first modem was a box about 12x8x2.5 inches and it was an all analog
modem good for 110/300 baud and it required connection to the phone line
(pre-modular connector) and you dialed the various (and relatively
scarce) BBSs and when you heard the tone hit the switch that put the
modem on the phone line and you would see the carrier and data lamps
do their thing. That was 1978ish.
A modem that could dial was maybe 1983-5 or so at affordable prices
(under 300$) for 300 baud.
Allison
5 Jun
5 Jun
8:42 a.m.
On 6/4/19 8:30 PM, allison via cctalk wrote:
Keep in mins the hardware for auto dial required some
for of micro and
that was a post 1974 thing for the most part.
Why did it require a micro? Could the host not perform the function
that the micro would do?
A few before that had a lot of TTL state machine to do
that.
They obviously weren't cheap.
Why did that state machine need to be implemented in electronics?
Why couldn't that state machine be implemented in software on the host
using the modem & auto-dialer?
The dialer was often not at all as it was the human
that dialed the phone.
~chuckle~
I know of none that did both functions that required a
second serial port.
Okay.
Reading the links that Ethan provided, it sounds like some auto-dialers
did use a second port, but it was not a second (recommended) standard
232 port. Instead it was an RS-232 and RS-366.
Aside: RS-366 sounds odd. A combination of serial signaling and
parallel signaling on the same port. But not the same as a traditional
parallel printer port.
My first modem was a box about 12x8x2.5 inches and it
was an all analog
modem good for 110/300 baud and it required connection to the phone line
(pre-modular connector) and you dialed the various (and relatively scarce)
BBSs and when you heard the tone hit the switch that put the modem on
the phone line and you would see the carrier and data lamps do their
thing. That was 1978ish.
Aside: I assume that you're talking about before the small 6-position 2
or 4 conductor plugs. Or are you referring to the older than that
not-quite-square 4 pin plug? Or was the modem actually hard wired in
with no plug / jack at all?
A modem that could dial was maybe 1983-5 or so at
affordable prices
(under 300$) for 300 baud.
*nod*
I have this mental picture, which I think is based on something I've
seen at some point in the past, that was a device that attached /
actuated / ??? a traditional rotary dial phone. As in it had a finger
that interfaced with the dial and something that could rotate it to dial
the digit in question, rewind (term?), and dial the next digit in question.
--
Grant. . . .
unix || die
8:58 a.m.
On Wed, Jun 5, 2019 at 10:42 AM Grant Taylor via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
Reading the links that Ethan provided, it sounds like
some auto-dialers
did use a second port, but it was not a second (recommended) standard
232 port. Instead it was an RS-232 and RS-366.
Aside: RS-366 sounds odd. A combination of serial signaling and
parallel signaling on the same port. But not the same as a traditional
parallel printer port.
Not quite... the USD 801 ACU I keep mentioning supported dialing using
either RS-232 or RS-366 over the same physical port. It was a
flexible device that would work with a parallel dialing controller
like the DEC DN11 or by just using a second serial port from your
host.
> My first modem was a box about 12x8x2.5 inches
and it was an all analog
> modem good for 110/300 baud and it required connection to the phone line...
My own first modem (vs the sync stuff I've been mentioning) was a
Commodore VICmodem that didn't even connect directly to your phone
line that I got in late 1982.
The host connector was a TTL-level edge connector for the VIC-20/C-64
User Port. There were routines in ROM that emulated a 6850 ACIA for
Kernel device #2 (OPEN 2,2,2...) but from an application software
standpoint it worked just as if you had a UART in the machine. The
other connector was a handset connector for a standard US telephone
(narrow 4p4c jack). Internally, the modem was functionally like a
Novation Cat without the acoustic cups or the EIA level converters or
indicator LEDs.
To use this modem, you'd load and run your terminal app then pick up
the phone and dial the number. When the far end answered, you'd
unplug the coiled cord from the handset and quickly plug it into the
VICmodem before the other end hung up. It did have the advantage over
an acoustic coupler in that room noise was not a factor and it had the
advantage over a Hayes modem of cost (ISTR the VICmodem was somewhere
around $70 and did not require the $50 Commodore RS-232 "interface"
(analog level shifter with DB25 port). I did eventually get that
RS-232 cartridge but not for modem work. I got it to hook my C-64 to
other local machines for file transfer.
Like a lot of hobbyists in the 70s and 80s, I spent a lot of time
making serial adapters and debugging serial comms. It came in handy
when I went to work for the place that made sync serial devices. I
still do most of my hacking on a Dell laptop that's old enough to have
a real serial port and I do use that port. It has advantages over USB
dongles for some of the less-traditional uses (like 45.45 / 50 bps and
2 stop bits for old teletypes).
-ethan
9:45 a.m.
On 6/5/19 9:58 AM, Ethan Dicks via cctalk wrote:
Not quite... the USD 801 ACU I keep mentioning
supported dialing using
either RS-232 or RS-366 over the same physical port. It was a flexible
device that would work with a parallel dialing controller like the DEC
DN11 or by just using a second serial port from your host.
Okay. Now I'm even more confused. I'll have to go back and re-read
some of the links you shared. I'd swear that the brochure mentioned 1 x
RS-232 + 1 x RS-366 -or- 2 x RS-232 port requirement on hosts.
The other connector was a handset connector for a
standard US telephone
(narrow 4p4c jack).
To use this modem, you'd load and run your terminal app then pick up the
phone and dial the number. When the far end answered, you'd unplug the
coiled cord from the handset and quickly plug it into the VICmodem before
the other end hung up.
So the phone played an active role in modem communications. At least in
so far as it converted the purely audio from the modem to telephony used
by the PSTN.
It did have the advantage over an acoustic coupler in
that room noise
was not a factor
ACK
Analogues to the Line-Out to Line-In for audio recording vs speaker and
microphone. (Quite literally.)
it had the advantage over a Hayes modem of cost (ISTR
the VICmodem
was somewhere around $70 and did not require the $50 Commodore RS-232
"interface" (analog level shifter with DB25 port). I did eventually get
that RS-232 cartridge but not for modem work. I got it to hook my C-64
to other local machines for file transfer.
ACK
Like a lot of hobbyists in the 70s and 80s, I spent a
lot of time making
serial adapters and debugging serial comms. It came in handy when I
went to work for the place that made sync serial devices. I still do
most of my hacking on a Dell laptop that's old enough to have a real
serial port and I do use that port. It has advantages over USB dongles
for some of the less-traditional uses (like 45.45 / 50 bps and 2 stop
bits for old teletypes).
Intriguing. I've never done much with anything other than 9600 or
115200 for terminal connections to equipment to configure & manage said
equipment.
--
Grant. . . .
unix || die
11 a.m.
On Wed, Jun 5, 2019 at 11:45 AM Grant Taylor via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
On 6/5/19 9:58 AM, Ethan Dicks via cctalk wrote:
I agree with what that brochure says. The 801 ACU + Modem needed
either RS-366 + 1 x RS-232 or 2 x RS-232 depending on what you had to
drive it. It was more flexible than some other ACUs that only
provided one type of physical connection.
The DN11 connects to the 801 ACU via RS-366. In conjunction with
that, one of your PDP-11/VAX RS-232 serial ports was used for the
modem.
For the COMBOARD example, the COMBOARD itself provided a sync serial
port, not a serial port of the VAX you were on, to talk to the sync
modem, _but_ one of the VAX ports _was_ used to drive the 801 ACU.
Not quite... the USD 801 ACU I keep mentioning
supported dialing using
either RS-232 or RS-366 over the same physical port. It was a flexible
device that would work with a parallel dialing controller like the DEC
DN11 or by just using a second serial port from your host.
Okay. Now I'm even more confused. I'll have to go back and re-read
some of the links you shared. I'd swear that the brochure mentioned 1 x
RS-232 + 1 x RS-366 -or- 2 x RS-232 port requirement on hosts. > The other connector was a handset connector for a
standard US telephone
> (narrow 4p4c jack).
The rest of my message was about the VICmodem and nothing to do with an 801 ACU.
So the phone played an active role in modem
communications. At least in
so far as it converted the purely audio from the modem to telephony used
by the PSTN.
Yes.
Intriguing. I've never done much with anything
other than 9600 or
115200 for terminal connections to equipment to configure & manage said
equipment.
My first 9600 connection to a machine was a local terminal on a VAX at
work. My own gear didn't go that fast in those days. I'm trying to
remember if I got a (new) Amiga 1000 first or a (used) PDP-11/23
first, but one of those two was what I could finally use to go that
fast at home. My fastest modem for a long while was a borrowed 1200
baud modem for calling into work/school.
My first modems were the aforementioned VICmodem (300 baud) and a
suitcase-sized 110 baud "DataSet" mounted into the bottom of an ASR33.
-ethan
11:01 a.m.
On Wed, 5 Jun 2019, Grant Taylor via cctalk wrote:
So the phone played an active role in modem
communications. At least in so
far as it converted the purely audio from the modem to telephony used by the
PSTN.
"MODEM" is short for "MODulator-DEModulator"
It is explicitly a device that took data and "MODULATED" it into audio
tones for the phone, and took tones from the phone and "DEMODULATED" them
into data.
Bell 103 used one frequency for 1 and another for 0, and a different pair
for the other side, to at least in theory permit full-duplex.
1270Hz/1070Hz and 2225Hz/2025Hz
A couple of my students tried to make an almost entirely software based
modem that just counted the waves.
If you calculate how many waves of the tone you get at 300 per second, you
can see why the speed could not be increased [MUCH].
"it is impossible to go faster than that"
Later systems to try to speed things up went to PHASE-shift keying,
"it is impossible to go faster than that"
quadrature, etc.
"it is impossible to go faster than that"
even compression ("56K" V.90,etc.)
each of which had its own theoretical speed limits, and
"it is impossible to go faster than that"
7:39 p.m.
On 6/5/19 12:01 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:
"MODEM" is short for
"MODulator-DEModulator"
It is explicitly a device that took data and "MODULATED" it into audio
tones for the phone, and took tones from the phone and "DEMODULATED"
them into data.
Yes. That's generally what a modem is. Data on one side and something
else on the other side. The other side could be audio like the handset
of a phone, or it could be a phone line, or it could be coax for a cable
modem.
Most of the modems that I've seen were data on one side and phone lines
on the other side. Conversely the modem that Ethan was talking about
had data on one side and the audio portion on the other side. The phone
was required as an integral piece to convert the audio from the modem to
the phone line required by the PSTN. The modem would not work without
the phone. Where as most modems, the pone isn't involved and / or can
be completely absent.
Bell 103 used one frequency for 1 and another for 0,
and a different
pair for the other side, to at least in theory permit full-duplex.
1270Hz/1070Hz and 2225Hz/2025Hz
A couple of my students tried to make an almost entirely software based
modem that just counted the waves.
If you calculate how many waves of the tone you get at 300 per second,
you can see why the speed could not be increased [MUCH].
"it is impossible to go faster than that"
Later systems to try to speed things up went to PHASE-shift keying, "it
is impossible to go faster than that"
quadrature, etc.
"it is impossible to go faster than that"
even compression? ("56K" V.90,etc.)
each of which had its own theoretical speed limits, and "it is
impossible to go faster than that"
Intriguing.
--
Grant. . . .
unix || die
9:01 a.m.
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Grant Taylor via
cctalk
Sent: Wednesday, June 05, 2019 10:42 AM
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: Modems and external dialers.
On 6/4/19 8:30 PM, allison via cctalk wrote:
Keep in mins the hardware for auto dial required some
for of micro and
that was a post 1974 thing for the most part.
Why did it require a micro? Could the host not perform the function
that the micro would do?
A few before that had a lot of TTL state machine to do
that.
They obviously weren't cheap.
Why did that state machine need to be implemented in electronics?
Why couldn't that state machine be implemented in software on the host
using the modem & auto-dialer?
The dialer was often not at all as it was the human
that dialed the phone.
~chuckle~
I know of none that did both functions that required a
second serial port.
Okay.
Reading the links that Ethan provided, it sounds like some auto-dialers
did use a second port, but it was not a second (recommended) standard
232 port. Instead it was an RS-232 and RS-366.
Aside: RS-366 sounds odd. A combination of serial signaling and
parallel signaling on the same port. But not the same as a traditional
parallel printer port.
My first modem was a box about 12x8x2.5 inches and it
was an all analog
modem good for 110/300 baud and it required connection to the phone line
(pre-modular connector) and you dialed the various (and relatively scarce)
BBSs and when you heard the tone hit the switch that put the modem on
the phone line and you would see the carrier and data lamps do their
thing. That was 1978ish.
Aside: I assume that you're talking about before the small 6-position 2
or 4 conductor plugs. Or are you referring to the older than that
not-quite-square 4 pin plug? Or was the modem actually hard wired in
with no plug / jack at all?
A modem that could dial was maybe 1983-5 or so at
affordable prices
(under 300$) for 300 baud.
*nod*
I have this mental picture, which I think is based on something I've
seen at some point in the past, that was a device that attached /
actuated / ??? a traditional rotary dial phone. As in it had a finger
that interfaced with the dial and something that could rotate it to dial
the digit in question, rewind (term?), and dial the next digit in question.
--
Grant. . . .
unix || die
I used to have Rixon 212A autodialers. There were about the size of a Hayes modem, and
only had 1 RS232 port and a phone jack on the back. I no longer have the modems, but I do
still have one owner's manual in a binder. IIRC, the dialing was done through a
software interface.
The other dialers mentioned before were probably twice the size of the Rixon.
I do still have one 300 baud acoustical modem in stock, if anyone is interested. AC
adapter is included.
Cindy
---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus
1:08 p.m.
On 06/05/2019 12:01 PM, Electronics Plus via cctalk wrote:
Those likely existed but it was for system that did a lot of dialing out.
For a lot of years the older hardware TELCO had ws still in place.
I still have a 500 series deskset and it works well! So at that time
I connected using whatever ways needed, sometimes I upgraded to makes it
easier next time.
Modular is the RJ stuff newer and still in use, the older was the
larger clunky 4 pin plug. My house still has a few.
Wild idea but never saw that one. I have the advantage of spanning
computing from late 60s to now. The intersting case was 1970, PDP10
with PDP8I the 8I did all the communications between the 10 (blkio)
and the modem bank which was dial in only. Over 300 users on the BOCES
LIRICS computer network and 98% of them were ASR33 with 110baud
acoustic coupled modem. the last 2% were ASR35 and Hazeltine 1000 and
2000 terminals in the center (local 1200baud!).
So I remember pre-carterphone to 56K modems, then DSL and now fiber.
My memory of carterphone was a interconnect for radios (Amateur radio)
and how we then just did it being very careful with transformer
isolation. By 1970 I was working in the land mobile industry with
remote base radios connected with RTL (Radio Tie Lines) which were just
a pair of rented wires (owned by TPC aka telco) between the business to
the hill where the radios were. They had to pass DC and every so often
some bright eyes would add load coils and effectively short out the
line. That would cause a day of troubleshooting as it was never the
TPCs fault. At least according to them.
Allison
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Grant Taylor via
cctalk
Sent: Wednesday, June 05, 2019 10:42 AM
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: Modems and external dialers.
On 6/4/19 8:30 PM, allison via cctalk wrote:
Simple answer was at that time micros were not yet invented. Actually
they were but not economical when a 8080 board or 6502 board required a
large handful of parts. Before that? Whats an 8080?
Keep in mins the hardware for auto dial required
some for of micro and
that was a post 1974 thing for the most part.
Why did it require a micro? Could the host not perform the function
that the micro would do?
> A few before that had a lot of TTL state machine to do that.
> They obviously weren't cheap. Why did that state machine need to be implemented in
electronics?
It was a way to have rudimentary smarts that was not quite a cpu.
Why couldn't that state machine be implemented in
software on the host
using the modem & auto-dialer?
IT was the auto dialer! OR it used manual dialer.
The dialer was
often not at all as it was the human that dialed the phone.
~chuckle~
I know of none that did both functions that
required a second serial port.
Okay.
Reading the links that Ethan provided, it sounds like some auto-dialers
did use a second port, but it was not a second (recommended) standard
232 port. Instead it was an RS-232 and RS-366.
Aside: RS-366 sounds odd. A combination of serial signaling and
parallel signaling on the same port. But not the same as a traditional
parallel printer port.
My first modem
was a box about 12x8x2.5 inches and it was an all analog
modem good for 110/300 baud and it required connection to the phone line
(pre-modular connector) and you dialed the various (and relatively scarce)
BBSs and when you heard the tone hit the switch that put the modem on
the phone line and you would see the carrier and data lamps do their
thing. That was 1978ish.
Aside: I assume that you're talking about before the small 6-position 2
or 4 conductor plugs. Or are you referring to the older than that
not-quite-square 4 pin plug? Or was the modem actually hard wired in
with no plug / jack at all? A modem that
could dial was maybe 1983-5 or so at affordable prices
(under 300$) for 300 baud.
*nod*
I have this mental picture, which I think is based on something I've
seen at some point in the past, that was a device that attached /
actuated / ??? a traditional rotary dial phone. As in it had a finger
that interfaced with the dial and something that could rotate it to dial
the digit in question, rewind (term?), and dial the next digit in question.
9:27 a.m.
On Jun 5, 2019, at 11:42 AM, Grant Taylor via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
wrote:
Why did it require a micro? Could the host not
perform the function that the micro would do? [?] Why couldn't that state machine be
implemented in software on the host using the modem & auto-dialer?
Character-based I/O on mainframes and even minicomputers was fairly rare at that point. On
some systems it was impossible; on others it was very CPU-intensive. I remember trying to
do character I/O on a Tandem NonStop; it wasn?t easy, or effective. Having a dedicated
microcomputer solved a lot of problems.
My dad actually built a successful company in the 1980s to do just that: he build
front-end controllers, which were essentially large number of serial ports connected to a
rack of Z80 boards, which would then be connected to a mini (a Tandem) or mainframe via
some bulk-oriented format. For example, I wrote code for him that let a typical terminal
(eg, Wyse, VT-100) emulate a Univac block-style terminal. All the input, screen
management, etc. was done on the Z80 machines, then shipped over in a multiplex fashion
first to the Tandem and then to a Univac as block forms.
Reading the links that Ethan provided, it sounds like
some auto-dialers did use a second port, but it was not a second (recommended) standard
232 port. Instead it was an RS-232 and RS-366. [?] Or was the modem actually hard wired
in with no plug / jack at all?
You?re getting warmer. ;-)
Modems started out as straight modulators-demodulators, connecting two remote devices
(computers, terminals, printers) over a point-to-point leased line specially installed
from the local telephone company ? basically like a T1 line would be installed today. The
POTS line was hard-wired (via screw-down terminals) on one side of the modem and the
digital data connector (eg, DB-25) on the other. Usually the connections were always on; I
suppose the billing was probably by data usage, or even fixed price, instead of by time.
I have this mental picture, which I think is based on
something I've seen at some point in the past, that was a device that attached /
actuated / ??? a traditional rotary dial phone. As in it had a finger that interfaced
with the dial and something that could rotate it to dial the digit in question, rewind
(term?), and dial the next digit in question.
Maybe someone created that monstrosity (;-), but the typical usage was that you used an
acoustic coupler modem that had cups where a typical handset would fit. The modem itself
only had a data connection to the terminal (or printer or card reader/punch). Next to the
modem was a regular telephone ? you dialed the number on the phone, and once you heard the
carrier squeal, you?d quickly set the handset into the coupler. Usually you?d see a spurt
of random characters on the screen which was the modem getting confused by the carrier
being gradually synced up. To hang up, you?d simply pull the handset out of the coupler
and hang it up as normal.
I do recall a little handheld device with a touchtone keyboard that you could fit over the
microphone of a normal handset. It wasn?t automated, but at least you didn?t have to use
the rotary dial. (This presumed, of course, that the telco switch was DTMF-compatible.)
?John
9:30 a.m.
On Wed, 5 Jun 2019 at 18:27, John Labovitz via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
I do recall a little handheld device with a touchtone keyboard that you could fit over
the microphone of a normal handset. It wasn?t automated, but at least you didn?t have to
use the rotary dial.
This was a built-in feature of the Psion range of PDAs. The address
book app could dial any number in the address book, merely by holding
it up to the phone mouthpiece.
It blew people's minds at the time (very early 1990s).
--
Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lproven at gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven - Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven
UK: +44 7939-087884 - ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
9:40 a.m.
On 6/5/19 12:30 PM, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:
On Wed, 5 Jun 2019 at 18:27, John Labovitz via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
Why? Handheld touchtone generators were very common in the
the early 90's. Even the late 80's. I bought mine in Radio
Shack. They were often needed if your employer used an in
house private phone network (like MMDS where I worked) or
a phone accessed Email system (like IBM's PROFS) because
the phone company had this habit of turning off the keypad
on payphones after the first connection.
bill
I do recall a little handheld device with a touchtone keyboard that you could fit over
the microphone of a normal handset. It wasn?t automated, but at least you didn?t have to
use the rotary dial.
This was a built-in feature of the Psion range of PDAs. The address
book app could dial any number in the address book, merely by holding
it up to the phone mouthpiece.
It blew people's minds at the time (very early 1990s).
9:48 a.m.
On Wed, 5 Jun 2019 at 18:40, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
Why? Handheld touchtone generators were very common in the
the early 90's. Even the late 80's. I bought mine in Radio
Shack. They were often needed if your employer used an in
house private phone network (like MMDS where I worked) or
a phone accessed Email system (like IBM's PROFS) because
the phone company had this habit of turning off the keypad
on payphones after the first connection.
This may be a European thing, I don't know.
This wasn't a phone-dialling device or anything. It was a tiny pocket
computer, but unlike something like an HP 95LX, it was a GUI machine
with a diary, address book, word-processor, spreadsheet and so on.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psion_Series_3
It wasn't the first "digital diary" of course, but it was the best.
Ultimately a later, ARM version of the OS became the basis of Symbian.
But the fact that your pocket address book could dial the phone for
you -- not by being a keypad or anything, just by picking it up,
looking for Bob and pressing DIAL and then holding it near the phone
-- was impressive for its time.
One of my favourite things to do with its successor model (the Series
5) was pull up an address entry, and when someone pulled out a Palm
Pilot and starting trying to scribble Graffiti into it, to stop them
and transmit the contact to them by IRDA. Most Palm owners had no idea
that their devices spoke infra-red and for them to get a whole contact
instantly by wireless was deeply impressive to them.
--
Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lproven at gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven - Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven
UK: +44 7939-087884 - ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
11:06 a.m.
On Wed, 5 Jun 2019, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:
One of my favourite things to do with its successor
model (the Series
5) was pull up an address entry, and when someone pulled out a Palm
Pilot and starting trying to scribble Graffiti into it, to stop them
and transmit the contact to them by IRDA. Most Palm owners had no idea
that their devices spoke infra-red and for them to get a whole contact
instantly by wireless was deeply impressive to them.
I don't think that my Fossil (Palm-OS WATCH) does IRDA.
I should find somebody who will pay me money for such a piece of
crap^H^H^H^H NEAT technology.
NOTE:
I consider the OQOs (XP or Linux in a pocket; need to sell off of a bunch
of them), and the Fossil to be "Classic" even if they don't follow a
10-year/20-year/30-year guideline :-)
6 Jun
6 Jun
4:43 a.m.
On Wed, 5 Jun 2019 at 20:06, Fred Cisin via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
I don't think that my Fossil (Palm-OS WATCH) does IRDA.
I should find somebody who will pay me money for such a piece of
crap^H^H^H^H NEAT technology.
Good question. I was slightly tempted when they were being sold off
cheap at the end of production, but I resisted. I was never a big fan
of PalmOS, TBH. Too limited for me as a former Psion user, and the
Palm devices were always very tied to a PC -- they were meant to be a
way to take your Outlook (or whatever) address book and diary with you
in your pocket. I didn't use Outlook or a desktop PC PIM at all. I
used my Psions for that stuff. It multitasked with anything, had a
better richer calendar app than any PC product ever written, was more
reliable than any general-purpose desktop PC ever, and fit in my
pocket and ran for a month on 2 AA cells.
I suspect that one of the things that contributed to Psion's downfall
is that AFAIK they never really cracked the US market, which was
dominated by weird expensive little gadgets that tried to be a tiny,
hopelessly-compromised generic PC in a tiny form-factor -- things
like, well:
NOTE:
I consider the OQOs (XP or Linux in a pocket; need to sell off of a bunch
of them), and the Fossil to be "Classic" even if they don't follow a
10-year/20-year/30-year guideline :-)
... like the OQO, the Poqet, the DIP Portfolio, the HP LX and Omnigo range, etc.
In the 1990s and indeed the first decade of the 2000s, it was, on the
face of it, clear plain and obvious that you couldn't fit a generic PC
clone that you'd actually want to use into your pocket, and if you
compromised it so you could, it would be horrid: either it would have
a battery life roughly as long as a hummingbird orgasm, or it would be
a PC with the capabilities of a desktop from a decade or 2 earlier.
So, an early 1980s PC class machine in the 1990s -- HP LX etc. -- or a
1990s laptop in the noughties.
The result was, to my European eyes, a succession of overpriced,
underspecified, clever but undesirable gadgets. And the response to
_that_ was the Palm range, which were just an accessory to a business
PC.
I didn't want either.
The European solution was different. It said: "OK then, we can't fit
the hardware to run a desktop OS into a pocket and deliver a good
experience, so what we'll do is this: we'll fit the best hardware we
can on a budget and with decent power consumption so it doesn't run
out inconveniently fast, and we'll write bespoke software to run on it
to deliver the functionality customers actually need."
The result was first, the Psions.
A little later, in the Nordic countries, the Nokia mobile phones.
Psion's first try, the MC laptops.
http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=737&st=1
Neat hardware, clever OS, but decent PC laptops were coming. So they
shrank it into the Psion Series 3 range:
http://www.retroisle.com/others/psion/series3/general.php
I suspect many American readers have never seen or held one of these
so it might be worth a read.
http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/4020/Psion-Series-3/
https://stevelitchfield.com/historyofpsion.htm
The Series 3 had a small screen but an elegant multitasking GUI OS on
an 8086. Optimised for keyboard operation, no touchscreen. Very rich
PIM apps -- seriously, unsurpassed on any other platform. Rock-solid
OS. Only connected to PCs for backing up.
The range gradually got bigger screens and more RAM over the next few years.
Then they realised they'd reached the end of the line fort the
hardware, rewrote the OS in C++ for ARM and did the Psion 5 range:
https://thenewstack.io/retrocomputing-in-modern-times-rediscovering-the-psi…
An Australian assessment:
http://www.ericlindsay.com/epoc/m5palm.htm
When Psion saw that the writing was on the wall for PDAs without
wireless comms, they formed Symbian, rewrote the OS to have a comms
stack, and moved successfully into smartphones.
There were some missteps though. The OS was written in C++ before the
language was really ready, and so it went its own, non-standard way.
(The same problem arguably afflicted Be and BeOS.)
There was no standard GUI for Symbian: they led each licensee do their
own, with no source-code compatibility. That was a big mistake. As a
result, there were several:
* UIQ on Sony Ericsson devices
* Nokia Series 60 -- for candybar phones with a numeric keypad
* Nokia Series 80 -- a recreated Psion UI for the ill-fated 7700
series. That's what I bought.
* Nokia Series 80 -- for the QWERTY-equipped Communicators, somewhat
inspired by Geos and the HP OmniGo
* MOAP by NTT DoCoMo -- Japanese market only
Then later, realising this was a mess, they tried to reconcile them,
flailing around with a Qt abstraction later, buying TrollTech to do
it, and other efforts, but it was too little too late.
Symbian had some unique attributes. E.g. it was the *only* smartphone
OS to offer good enough realtime for single-CPU phones, running the
comms stack on the same CPU as the user-facing GUI. *EVERY* other
vendor had to run a separate CPU for the networking and comms.
But in the end, the American version won out. The iPhone had a
radically simpler UI, in a single stroke obliterating Symbian and
after a few years Blackberry too.
The only survivor was Android.
Designed by Android Inc as an OS for digital cameras:
https://www.androidauthority.com/history-android-os-name-789433/
... acquired by Google and repurposed for a Blackberry clone -- this:
https://www.theverge.com/2012/4/25/2974676/this-was-the-original-google-pho…
https://www.pcworld.com/article/254539/original_android_prototype_revealed_…
And then they saw the iPhone, pivoted again and did a very successful
iPhone knock-off, just as Windows was a successful Mac System
knock-off... after the first few versions.
Result of the eventual convergence on the American model:
We have amazingly sophisticated, high-spec smartphones and tablets,
but they have a battery life of a single day, replacing European
phones that lasted a week and PDAs that lasted a month.
Why, no, I am *not* happy about that.
The European PDAs had excellent keyboards you could type on. My Psion
5MX paid for itself in the first weekend of ownership: on a
long-distance coach with a fold-down table the size of an iPad, I
wrote 2 articles, both of which I sold and which paid for the device.
My Nokia phones had physical keyboards and very smart software for
fast text input.
Now? No keyboards at all.
No, I am not happy about that, either.
I could read the screens of my Psion and Nokia in bright sunshine.
American-design ones are slowly edging back towards that, but it's
still difficult. Daylight-readable screens have disappeared from the
market.
I'm not happy about that, either.
My Psions and Nokias had bulletproof OSes that lasted for years
without a single update, and yes, they were Internet-connected by the
last few generations. They ran in a few tens of megabytes of
nonvolatile storage.
Now, my tablet and iPhone and Android phones need *at least* 3 or 4
apps updating every day. If I don't use one for a few weeks, it's just
like Windows -- I have to do half an hour of updates before I can use
it. The OS needs to be replaced every month or two to fix all the
flaws in it, and that's a gigabyte or so of storage.
I am *furious* about this.
"The JesusPhone, I swear it is smiling at me: Come to me. come to me
and be saved. The luscious curves, the polished glissade of the icons
in the multi-touch interface - whoever designed that thing is an
intuitive illusionist, I realise fuzzily as my fingertip closes in on
the screen: That's at least a class five glamour."
(Charles Stross, /The Fuller Memorandum/)
They're very shiny. They do a lot.
But I had a better *phone* and a better *PDA* 20 years ago. The whole
is much less than the sum of its parts.
--
Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lproven at gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven - Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven
UK: +44 7939-087884 - ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
9:47 a.m.
On Thu, Jun 6, 2019 at 6:44 AM Liam Proven via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
...I was never a big fan
of PalmOS, TBH. Too limited for me as a former Psion user, and the
Palm devices were always very tied to a PC -- they were meant to be a
way to take your Outlook (or whatever) address book and diary with you
in your pocket.
Interesting view of Palm usage that I hadn't considered.
I didn't use Outlook or a desktop PC PIM at all.
Nor did I. When I carried a Palm Pilot every day, I was using UNIX
'mail' for work e-mail and did all local edits of my calendar on the
Palm. I did backup my Palm Pilot, to my Linux Laptop (I still have
backups files from 1999 in an archive folder).
What I used mine for was a clock, a local calendar, and once I got a
keyboard, a portable note-taker in meetings, plus games and other
trivial apps. I also got a snap-on GPS and used it when making 1-2
hour flights in a small plane (battery life was an issue on longer
flights since it wasn't designed for continuous use, even with the
backlight off). And a few times, I used a vt100 app and the standard
serial sync cable to log into and update a Cisco switch. Thinking
back, once I had that Palm V which could stay powered on in the
cradle, I used an HD44780 LCD emulator to do desktop testing of
LCDproc, an Open Source project I still work with. Most of this is
odd usage compared to the target market.
[Psion] ... fit in my pocket and ran for a month on 2
AA cells.
The Palm was definitely more battery hungry. I ended up spending a
lot of money on an early NiMh battery pack that had a replacement
battery cover that allowed for through-the-cover recharging.
Eventually, I got a used Palm V to recharge in the cradle. I also got
an app to migrate some apps to internal Flash so I wouldn't have to
reload them when my battery did go flat.
I _did_ like carrying around a 68000-based portable machine in a day
when laptops were thick and heavy and had abysmal battery life. I
didn't have a mobile phone for the first several years I had a Palm.
Later, when I got a phone, it made phone calls and that was it.
Co-workers did experiment with the Palm Treo phone, but that was far
too expensive for me to consider. It wasn't very integrated but I
carried two devices for a long time (I only upgraded from that phone
from 2000 (nine years later) once it was obsoleted on
the network
because it lacked 911-location features and it was blocked from
re-provisioning by changes in regulation in the US market).
Because of my background writing code for the 68000, I entertained
writing apps for PalmOS but I never managed to do more than get the
SDK and fiddle around a bit. I never completed a project from
end-to-end.
So I liked the Palm Pilot, but I didn't have a Psion to compare it to,
and I can see where you are coming from, from a user experience
standpoint.
-ethan
10:24 a.m.
On Thu, 6 Jun 2019 at 18:47, Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> wrote:
Interesting view of Palm usage that I hadn't considered.
Wow. I have never heard anyone using one so stand-alone. Fascinating. Thanks!
I didn't use Outlook or a desktop PC PIM at
all.
Nor did I. When I carried a Palm Pilot every day, I was using UNIX
'mail' for work e-mail and did all local edits of my calendar on the
Palm. I did backup my Palm Pilot, to my Linux Laptop (I still have
backups files from 1999 in an archive folder). What I used mine for was [...]
The Palm was definitely more battery hungry.
NEC V30 at 7.68 MHz, apparently. I guess it was a more frugal chip,
and certainly a very frugal OS.
Psion *nearly* did a deal with Palm to licence EPOC32 as the basis for
the newer ARM-based Palms. I wish that had happened -- it might have
been a much better deal than what did happen for both companies.
Eventually, I got a used Palm V to recharge in the
cradle. I also got
an app to migrate some apps to internal Flash so I wouldn't have to
reload them when my battery did go flat.
I have one somewhere, but I think it won't charge any more. I should
look into cheap repairs.
I _did_ like carrying around a 68000-based portable
machine in a day
when laptops were thick and heavy and had abysmal battery life.
I can see that, certainly.
I
didn't have a mobile phone for the first several years I had a Palm.
Later, when I got a phone, it made phone calls and that was it.
Ditto for me.
Co-workers did experiment with the Palm Treo phone,
but that was far
too expensive for me to consider.
I reviewed an "HP OmniGo 700LKX" with docked Nokia.
http://www.tankraider.com/DOSPALMTOP/hp700lx.html
That was an amazing device, albeit huge, but you could see the
potential. I loved doing wireless IRC and email on the sofa.
It wasn't very integrated but I
carried two devices for a long time (I only upgraded from that phone
from 2000 (nine years later) once it was obsoleted on the network
because it lacked 911-location features and it was blocked from
re-provisioning by changes in regulation in the US market).
Aha. I had a Motorola tri-band TimePort 7089:
http://www.mobilecollectors.net/phone/997/Motorola-Timeport%20L7089
This didn't do predictive text, so I linked it to the Psion via IRDA
and texted from a Psion app.
Then I got a Nokia 6310i:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_6310i
This did T9 wonderfully quickly, but linked via IRDA to my Psion 5 and
later 5MX. I could even make a PPP connection and do email and the
web, slowly but just occasionally amazingly useful. I could also sync,
sort and internationalise my phonebook, backup my SMSes and so on. For
the time, the integration was good.
The Timeport is probably around the time I found myself in a London
pub with a visiting American friend. My friends and I were using SMS
messages to organise when and where to meet. The American commented
that sadly American phones didn't do that and didn't support such
features.
I told them that they did. No, nossir, no way, nope.
So I asked for their number and texted them.
The phone made a noise they'd never heard before and a tiny envelope
appeared above the clock.
They were so shocked and taken aback they nearly suffered an
embarrasing self-control favour. I had to show them how to open the
message. They were utterly aghast.
Probably cost us about $1 each to send and to receive -- years later I
discovered that what drove things like iMessage and WhatsApp is that
American cellphone users paid to _receive_ text messages. This blew
the minds of every European who learned it. We paid a tiny amount to
send them, under 5?, and only when the few thousand you got for free
every month were exhausted -- but no European network ever charged to
_receive_ SMS. Amazing stuff.
Because of my background writing code for the 68000, I
entertained
writing apps for PalmOS but I never managed to do more than get the
SDK and fiddle around a bit. I never completed a project from
end-to-end.
So I liked the Palm Pilot, but I didn't have a Psion to compare it to,
and I can see where you are coming from, from a user experience
standpoint.
I guess the killer thing for me was the keyboard. I did learn Graffiti
-- on a Newton, at first -- but I found it slow and clunky. Psions
were like tiny laptops that went into a jacket pocket. 25-30 hours of
continuous use on 2 AA alkalines, a daylight-readable screen, a
keyboard you could hi-speed thumb-type on (series 3) or touch-type on
(series 5). Usable held in both hands, or if placed on a desk, the
superb hinge designs meant that the screen and keyboard were at a
usable angle, and touchscreen models didn't tip over. 2 storage slots,
wired and wireless comms, sound recording and playback. Nothing ever
came close.
An HP LX was like using a DOS PC compared to a colour Mac.
Annoying music but a demo of a late-model Series 3:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlv1naXDYHs
Demo of the radically different, 32-bit, RISC-based, Psion 5:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nEBnDB79XA
Dropped the dual proprietary storage slots, replaced with 1 standard CF slot.
--
Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lproven at gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven - Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven
UK: +44 7939-087884 - ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
10:30 a.m.
On 6/6/19 11:24 AM, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:
Wow. I have never heard anyone using one so
stand-alone. Fascinating. Thanks!
Most of the Palm users I knew, myself included, used their Palm largely
stand alone. Almost all of us backed up (synced) our device to our
computers as a backup in case of device corruption. Some of us did use
Palm Desktop as a convenient interface (PIM) to what was on our palms.
But the Palm was largely stand alone.
I did know a few people that synced with Outlook (and other things).
The person that introduced me to Palms and I did play with network based
syncing and had it working reliably at work.
I did learn Graffiti -- on a Newton, at first -- but I
found it slow
and clunky.
I found myself, along with a few other Palm users, using Graffiti on
paper, because it was faster than traditional letters.
--
Grant. . . .
unix || die
7 Jun
7 Jun
3:30 a.m.
On Thu, 6 Jun 2019 at 19:30, Grant Taylor via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
Most of the Palm users I knew, myself included, used
their Palm largely
stand alone. Almost all of us backed up (synced) our device to our
computers as a backup in case of device corruption. Some of us did use
Palm Desktop as a convenient interface (PIM) to what was on our palms.
But the Palm was largely stand alone.
I did know a few people that synced with Outlook (and other things).
The person that introduced me to Palms and I did play with network based
syncing and had it working reliably at work.
Remarkable. Well, perhaps I had it all wrong all this time!
I found myself, along with a few other Palm users,
using Graffiti on
paper, because it was faster than traditional letters.
:-o
Shorthand, yes. But Graffiti...
I have to ask. How is your cursive/longhand?
When I sent Palm owners contact info, some protested that my contacts
were _too full_ with _too much info_ -- home and work address,
multiple phone numbers, home and work emails, birthdays,
partners/kids' names, etc.
Their devices handled it but the owners couldn't. Palm owners entered
the bare minimum of contact info, because data entry was so painful.
This was one of the virtues of having a good keyboard, of course.
I knew one chap who tried to write a novel on his Palm device, but for
most, it was kept as short as possible. I wrote many tens of thousands
of words on my Psions -- they were a primary working device.
I took my new Gemini PDA to the FOSDEM FOSS conference in Brussels
back in February. Tried using it instead of a notebook PC for
note-taking. It was _far_ better. A tenth of the size or weight, but
as fast to type on, perfectly comfortable and convenient. And enough
battery life for a weekend of use without a charge. The Psion keyboard
at least lives on and is still relevant today.
--
Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lproven at gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven - Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven
UK: +44 7939-087884 - ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
6 Jun
6 Jun
10:55 a.m.
On Thu, 6 Jun 2019, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:
Wow. I have never heard anyone using one [Palm] so
stand-alone.
Fascinating. Thanks!
I used my Palm(s) completely stand-alone.
I did not "synchronize" them with PC, other than a token backup to confirm
process. And I never used it as a peripheral to the PC.
I did transfer a few files back and forth between Palm and PC; for
example, for a conference, I copied a file with the conference schedule
to the Palm.
I used the Fossil (Palm-OS) VERY briefly, in the same way. The watchband
on it is still new and stiff.
I used Atari Portfolio and Poqet a bit. AND, when I needed to research
and learn TSRs, I did so on them! Poqet was MS-DOS 5.00. Portfolio was
imitation-DOS, but close enough that they had implemented the undocumented
calls that TSRs used. I wrote the [text-mode] screen capture TSR for
XenoFont on them. (For a while, Sybex used the screen capture and
screen printing routines of XenoFont for all of their text-mode books.
Then, I wrote the XenoSoft Sales Tax Genie on the Poqet.
Yes, I tested everything on CGA, MDA, Hercules, EGA, VGA, 286, 386, 486,
Pentium. But why bother using those on 80x86 projects that were not
performance intensive? Nothing becomes USELESS just because there now
exists something bigger and faster.
I used the OQOs (XP) extensively for email and web browsing. (Before
Android smartphones)
Until presbyopia did me in, I had no problem with tiny screens, if they
had enough resolution. I could read microfilm without a viewer, and could
easily see the grain in photos. When the ophthalmalogist asked me to read
the smallest line on the eye chart, he had to walk over to it before he
would believe me that it said, "Copyright Bausch and Lomb". Now, I can't
even read printed text without at least +2.5
I would hope that the keyboard for Palm would at least use Grafiti font
for its keycaps :-)
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
7 Jun
7 Jun
3:45 a.m.
On Thu, 6 Jun 2019 at 19:55, Fred Cisin via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
I used my Palm(s) completely stand-alone.
I did not "synchronize" them with PC, other than a token backup to confirm
process. And I never used it as a peripheral to the PC.
I did transfer a few files back and forth between Palm and PC; for
example, for a conference, I copied a file with the conference schedule
to the Palm.
I used the Fossil (Palm-OS) VERY briefly, in the same way. The watchband
on it is still new and stiff.
I am boggling. Well, perhaps this is an intercontinental difference,
or perhaps I just had it wrong. For most of the users I know, it was a
pocketable version of their Outlook calendar and address book.
I used Atari Portfolio and Poqet a bit. AND, when I
needed to research
and learn TSRs, I did so on them! Poqet was MS-DOS 5.00. Portfolio was
imitation-DOS, but close enough that they had implemented the undocumented
calls that TSRs used. I wrote the [text-mode] screen capture TSR for
XenoFont on them. (For a while, Sybex used the screen capture and
screen printing routines of XenoFont for all of their text-mode books.
Then, I wrote the XenoSoft Sales Tax Genie on the Poqet.
Yes, I tested everything on CGA, MDA, Hercules, EGA, VGA, 286, 386, 486,
Pentium. But why bother using those on 80x86 projects that were not
performance intensive? Nothing becomes USELESS just because there now
exists something bigger and faster.
Well, no, of course not. That's sort of why we're all here.
I still use DOS occasionally -- usually DR-DOS or PC DOS, for me. For
some things, such as word processing, it's still fine.
But whereas I know people who use Mutt/Neomutt/Alpine, I want a GUI
for my email these days, for instance.
I used the OQOs (XP) extensively for email and web
browsing. (Before
Android smartphones)
I used my Nokia Communicator for that. :-) Small enough to use with 1
hand, when closed it was a decent "candybar" phone, but open, I could
read a letterbox-sized slice of an A4 PDF page comfortable.
Until presbyopia did me in, I had no problem with tiny
screens, if they
had enough resolution. I could read microfilm without a viewer, and could
easily see the grain in photos. When the ophthalmalogist asked me to read
the smallest line on the eye chart, he had to walk over to it before he
would believe me that it said, "Copyright Bausch and Lomb". Now, I can't
even read printed text without at least +2.5
:-(
I live in some fear of this, and it's why I have not had laser eye
surgery. (Adding the erroneous hyphen makes it sound much more
exciting: laser-eye surgery.)
I still have good close-up vision, at 51, but I have to hold stuff
within a few inches of my nose to do it. If/when that goes, either
LASIK or a cataract op will be high on the list
I would hope that the keyboard for Palm would at least
use Grafiti font
for its keycaps :-)
:-o
I have 2 of them and I have to disappoint you. :-D
--
Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lproven at gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven - Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven
UK: +44 7939-087884 - ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
6 Jun
6 Jun
10:44 a.m.
New subject: Palm usage was Re: Modems and external dialers.
...I was never
a big fan
of PalmOS, TBH. Too limited for me as a former Psion user, and the
Palm devices were always very tied to a PC -- they were meant to be a
way to take your Outlook (or whatever) address book and diary with you
in your pocket.
Interesting view of Palm usage that I hadn't considered.
I didn't use Outlook or a desktop PC PIM at
all.
Nor did I. When I carried a Palm Pilot every day, I was using UNIX
'mail' for work e-mail and did all local edits of my calendar on the
Palm. I did backup my Palm Pilot, to my Linux Laptop (I still have
backups files from 1999 in an archive folder). 
12:40 p.m.
New subject: Plua - Offlist reply (Re: Palm usage was Re: Modems and external dialers.)
On Thu, Jun 6, 2019 at 12:45 PM Cameron Kaiser via cctalk <
cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
Not sure if this counts as "connected" but I used Palm Desktop itself for
my personal scheduling. I never used my Palms (an m505 and a Zire 72) for
E-mail, though. It did mostly note-taking, calendar and pharmacy work, and
some programming (in Plua).
Cameron, how did you like Plua and what did you do with it? I remember
downloading it and running a few very simple things with it. I had been
looking for Python or Ruby at the time, but happened across that and
thought Lua seemed like an interesting language too. Sadly, I never got
around to learning it, though.
(I think my first exposure to Lua was through tomsrtbt, which I ran on an
old Compaq laptop; many of its scripts were in Lua. I think I read that
that let them be compact and still expressive. But after messing with that
system and not knowing my way around the scripts, I forgot about Lua until
I found Plua.)
--
Eric Christopherson
...I was never a big fan
of PalmOS, TBH. Too limited for me as a former Psion user, and the
Palm devices were always very tied to a PC -- they were meant to be a
way to take your Outlook (or whatever) address book and diary with you
in your pocket.
Interesting view of Palm usage that I hadn't considered.
I didn't use Outlook or a desktop PC PIM at
all.
Nor did I. When I carried a Palm Pilot every day, I was using UNIX
'mail' for work e-mail and did all local edits of my calendar on the
Palm. I did backup my Palm Pilot, to my Linux Laptop (I still have
backups files from 1999 in an archive folder).
12:41 p.m.
New subject: Palm usage was Re: Modems and external dialers.
On Thu, Jun 6, 2019 at 2:40 PM Eric Christopherson <
echristopherson at gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, Jun 6, 2019 at 12:45 PM Cameron Kaiser via
cctalk <
cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
Oops, sorry for sending this out to the list even though I changed the
subject line to indicate that it was offlist!
--
Eric Christopherson
Not sure if this counts as "connected"
but I used Palm Desktop itself for
my personal scheduling. I never used my Palms (an m505 and a Zire 72) for
E-mail, though. It did mostly note-taking, calendar and pharmacy work, and
some programming (in Plua).
Cameron, how did you like Plua and what did you do with it? I remember
downloading it and running a few very simple things with it. I had been
looking for Python or Ruby at the time, but happened across that and
thought Lua seemed like an interesting language too. Sadly, I never got
around to learning it, though.
1:17 p.m.
New subject: Palm usage was Re: Modems and external dialers.
You know I miss (A LOT) Palm desktop simplicity!?
Wish I could have the same functionality on my android phone. Everything
was SO simple and straightforward...
---8<---Corte aqui---8<---
http://www.tabajara-labs.blogspot.com
http://www.tabalabs.com.br
---8<---Corte aqui---8<---
Em qui, 6 de jun de 2019 ?s 14:45, Cameron Kaiser via cctalk <
cctalk at classiccmp.org> escreveu:
Not sure if this counts as "connected" but I used Palm Desktop itself for
my personal scheduling. I never used my Palms (an m505 and a Zire 72) for
E-mail, though. It did mostly note-taking, calendar and pharmacy work, and
some programming (in Plua).
--
------------------------------------ personal:
http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com *
ckaiser at floodgap.com
-- If elected, I will win. -- Pat Paulsen for President
-----------------------
...I was never a big fan
of PalmOS, TBH. Too limited for me as a former Psion user, and the
Palm devices were always very tied to a PC -- they were meant to be a
way to take your Outlook (or whatever) address book and diary with you
in your pocket.
Interesting view of Palm usage that I hadn't considered.
I didn't use Outlook or a desktop PC PIM at
all.
Nor did I. When I carried a Palm Pilot every day, I was using UNIX
'mail' for work e-mail and did all local edits of my calendar on the
Palm. I did backup my Palm Pilot, to my Linux Laptop (I still have
backups files from 1999 in an archive folder). 
9 Jun
9 Jun
4:45 a.m.
tor 2019-06-06 klockan 13:43 +0200 skrev Liam Proven via cctalk:
Result of the eventual convergence on the American model:
We have amazingly sophisticated, high-spec smartphones and tablets,
but they have a battery life of a single day, replacing European
phones that lasted a week and PDAs that lasted a month.
Why, no, I am *not* happy about that.
The European PDAs had excellent keyboards you could type on. My Psion
5MX paid for itself in the first weekend of ownership: on a
long-distance coach with a fold-down table the size of an iPad, I
wrote 2 articles, both of which I sold and which paid for the device.
The economist wrote about this (
https://www.economist.com/briefing/2019/06/08/how-the-pursuit-of-leisure-dr…
)
The current situation is this:
it is much more important for Apple and Samsung to sell overpriced
things to consumers which then basically only will be used to play
games, look on sport games and youtube films.
What you used the Psion for will only sell about 4 percent of apples
volumes last year....
The screen of the machine i write this on, stands on a sun sparcstation
10.
If i had that machine running well i would be as productive writing
reports on that one as on the asus tower which i now uses.
10 Jun
10 Jun
4:57 a.m.
On Sun, 9 Jun 2019 at 13:45, Stefan Skoglund <stefan.skoglund at agj.net> wrote:
The economist wrote about this (
https://www.economist.com/briefing/2019/06/08/how-the-pursuit-of-leisure-dr…
)
The current situation is this:
it is much more important for Apple and Samsung to sell overpriced
things to consumers which then basically only will be used to play
games, look on sport games and youtube films.
Fair point.
And in the tropics, it is more important than ever that a device is
sealed, waterproof, has no moving parts, etc. -- to keep it tough.
Cheap & replaceable are more important than convenient and repairable.
What you used the Psion for will only sell about 4
percent of apples
volumes last year....
The screen of the machine i write this on, stands on a sun sparcstation
10.
If i had that machine running well i would be as productive writing
reports on that one as on the asus tower which i now uses.
I know what you mean, and I agree.
I just wish a few more companies thought like Planet Computers and
tried to make devices for rich niches, rather than the cheap mass
market...
https://planetcom.squarespace.com/
--
Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lproven at gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven - Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven
UK: +44 7939-087884 - ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
6:44 a.m.
On Mon, Jun 10, 2019 at 01:57:34PM +0200, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:
[...]
I just wish a few more companies thought like Planet
Computers and tried to
make devices for rich niches, rather than the cheap mass market...
https://planetcom.squarespace.com/
So long as said companies don't just make yet another Android device based on a
cheap-and-nasty Mediatek SOC which requires proprietary Android-only drivers to
work well, and then make misleading claims about Linux support.
The Gemini's keyboard was very much a take-my-money-now feature when I saw it,
but since it was being crowdfunded on Indiegogo, the platform for stuff too
dodgy for Kickstarter, I decided to exercise caution and wait to see what, if
anything, would be delivered. When they finally admitted it had a Mediatek
chipset, I lost all interest. Been there, done that, never again.
Planet are right now crowdfunding their new "Cosmo Communicator". They have
apparently learned nothing as it also has a Mediatek chipset, and yet they
continue to disingenuously claim Linux support. I shall be giving this one a
wide berth too.
Third time lucky, eh? Maybe they should start talking to the Raspberry Pi
people who actually know a thing or two about getting Linux working well on
mobile chipsets.
7:44 a.m.
On Mon, 10 Jun 2019 at 15:45, Peter Corlett via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
So long as said companies don't just make yet another Android device based on a
cheap-and-nasty Mediatek SOC which requires proprietary Android-only drivers to
work well, and then make misleading claims about Linux support.
Don't all phone chipsets require Android drivers?
And on that point, so does the RasPi.
The Gemini's keyboard was very much a
take-my-money-now feature when I saw it,
but since it was being crowdfunded on Indiegogo, the platform for stuff too
dodgy for Kickstarter, I decided to exercise caution and wait to see what, if
anything, would be delivered. When they finally admitted it had a Mediatek
chipset, I lost all interest. Been there, done that, never again.
You pays your money, etc. I'm quite happy with mine. I don't use it as
a phone but for taking notes at conferences and events, for instance,
it's _superb_.
Planet are right now crowdfunding their new
"Cosmo Communicator". They have
apparently learned nothing as it also has a Mediatek chipset, and yet they
continue to disingenuously claim Linux support. I shall be giving this one a
wide berth too.
On their sales volumes, I think they have to go with whatever is cheap
and customisable on the Chinese market.
One of the sad things about the ARM market is that there is no
industry standard, no baseline to aim for. There isn't even standard
firmware. Lots of devices don't have firmware at all, so every Linux
port is a bare-metal thing, starting with hardware initialisation. A
year or 2 after it goes off the market, it's junk, as nothing will
support it any more.
ARM64 is trying to impose a requirement for UEFI, I believe, but [a]
the legions of cheap kit makers don't care and just ignore it, and [b]
UEFI is horrible.
Third time lucky, eh? Maybe they should start talking
to the Raspberry Pi
people who actually know a thing or two about getting Linux working well on
mobile chipsets.
Via big binary BLOBs, yeah, and a weird bootloader that means that the
GPU initialises the system and (I hear) retains some degree of control
over interrupts, making it more or less impossible to run a proper
hypervisor on the things.
--
Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lproven at gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven - Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven
UK: +44 7939-087884 - ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
9 Jun
9 Jun
4:49 a.m.
tor 2019-06-06 klockan 13:43 +0200 skrev Liam Proven via cctalk:
On Wed, 5 Jun 2019 at 20:06, Fred Cisin via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
I also hate my samsung a5 mobile - the stupid thing
doesnt have something which the two ericsson mobiles i used before (and
a nokia and i believe a samsung to) had.
Namely a small led which was on all the time. A great thing when
you need to look for the damn things while it is dark.
For example in the car or in bed or out in the nature inside a tent.
Stupid little things...
that little led usually changed colour when the battery became low.
I don't think that my Fossil (Palm-OS WATCH)
does IRDA.
I should find somebody who will pay me money for such a piece of
crap^H^H^H^H NEAT technology.
10 Jun
10 Jun
4:58 a.m.
On Sun, 9 Jun 2019 at 13:49, Stefan Skoglund <stefan.skoglund at agj.net> wrote:
I also hate my samsung a5 mobile - the stupid thing
doesnt have something which the two ericsson mobiles i used before (and
a nokia and i believe a samsung to) had.
Namely a small led which was on all the time. A great thing when
you need to look for the damn things while it is dark.
For example in the car or in bed or out in the nature inside a tent.
Stupid little things...
that little led usually changed colour when the battery became low.
Agreed again. My old Mac mini had a power LED. It pulsed softly when asleep.
The iMac that has replaced it has nothing. I can't tell if it is on,
off, asleep or what.
The cost saving of this change must be too small to measure. :-)
--
Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lproven at gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven - Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven
UK: +44 7939-087884 - ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
6:51 a.m.
On Mon, Jun 10, 2019 at 01:58:53PM +0200, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:
[...]
Agreed again. My old Mac mini had a power LED. It
pulsed softly when asleep.
The iMac that has replaced it has nothing. I can't tell if it is on,
off, asleep or what.
The cost saving of this change must be too small to measure. :-)
Adding pockets ruins the look, or something.
They're not even charging "only" ?54.99 for a Thunderbolt-to-power-LED
dongle,
so this particular essential component wasn't removed for the usual reason.
7:49 a.m.
On Mon, 10 Jun 2019 at 15:51, Peter Corlett via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
Adding pockets ruins the look, or something.
Yup.
They're going beyond the realm of their own previous products into
such severe minimalism it's becoming inconvenient.
I want an LED to tell me my charge/power status, message status, etc.,
thank you. I want a physical home button. I want a physical headphone
socket. If you want me to buy a ?1000 tablet, then I want multiple
ports, USB and Lightning or whatever. I want to connect a keyboard and
headphones and charge it all at once, thanks.
Since I can't have that, I bought a cheapo Chinese tablet instead, for
less than the cost of a second-hand iPad of similar spec. It does the
job.
It is very pleasant that I have come to a point in my life where I can
afford nice toys like a (second-hand) Retina iMac and what was still a
high-end iPhone when I got it (also 2nd hand).
However, so many features are disappearing from the newer models that
I am not sure they're going to keep me for long...
--
Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lproven at gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven - Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven
UK: +44 7939-087884 - ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
1:57 p.m.
On Thu, Jun 06, 2019 at 01:43:40PM +0200, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:
On Wed, 5 Jun 2019 at 20:06, Fred Cisin via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
[...]
I don't think that my Fossil (Palm-OS WATCH) does IRDA.
I should find somebody who will pay me money for such a piece of
crap^H^H^H^H NEAT technology.
Now? No keyboards at all.
No, I am not happy about that, either.
I could read the screens of my Psion and Nokia in bright sunshine.
American-design ones are slowly edging back towards that, but it's
still difficult. Daylight-readable screens have disappeared from the
market.
I'm not happy about that, either.
My Psions and Nokias had bulletproof OSes that lasted for years
without a single update, and yes, they were Internet-connected by the
last few generations. They ran in a few tens of megabytes of
nonvolatile storage.
Now, my tablet and iPhone and Android phones need *at least* 3 or 4
apps updating every day. If I don't use one for a few weeks, it's just
like Windows -- I have to do half an hour of updates before I can use
it. The OS needs to be replaced every month or two to fix all the
flaws in it, and that's a gigabyte or so of storage.
I am *furious* about this.
I share the sentiment and I guess I could give similar description
(yours was very interesting, BTW). If I had a privilege to own
Psion. But, when I went on for shopping, Psion was already bowing out
of the PDA market. So I bought Compaq iPAQ 3630, installed Familiar
Linux on it and hoped there would be a future when PDAs can be
bought. Hoho, I was so wrong. But while researching, I could on one
ocassion tap a bit on this excellent Psion 5mx keyboard in a shop. I
think about this keyboard to this very day.
About displays: my ideal display was the one from iPAQ (they were also
used in other handheld PDAs of the time). It was called transflective
LCD. They are easily recognized, because the light can be permamently
turned off. "Normal" LCD has a backlight, i.e. a layer of
leds/incandescents which shine through from the back of the display
towards the user. Transflectives have special reflective layer in the
back, and a diode on a side. The external light reflects and shines
back through the crystal layer. Sorry for laymanish description, but I
hope I have got it right.
Anyway, such display looked best in full sun. The one in 3630 could
display 4096 colors (with spectrum slightly bent towards pinky). Later
iPAQ models could do 65k colors (again slightly bent, but this time
much less visible). I used mine PDA as a proto ebook reader, lots of
html and pdb material read outdoors. The same kind of LCD was to be
found in many phones.
For whatever reason, morons decided the shiny LCD should be next best
thing. And transflective got lost. Just like this. Nada. Appears like
the very meaning of "mobile" changed during last twenty years - first
it meant "outdoors" and now it means "from one couch to another,
indoors".
"The JesusPhone, I swear it is smiling at me:
Come to me. come to me
and be saved. The luscious curves, the polished glissade of the icons
in the multi-touch interface - whoever designed that thing is an
intuitive illusionist, I realise fuzzily as my fingertip closes in on
the screen: That's at least a class five glamour."
(Charles Stross, /The Fuller Memorandum/)
They're very shiny. They do a lot.
But I had a better *phone* and a better *PDA* 20 years ago. The whole
is much less than the sum of its parts.
Twenty years ago people using such tech were easily falling into
"elite users" of some kind. Either because of earnings or because they
had nontrivial needs and were decided to satisfy them - and the
machines reflected this. Not so with todays users, and again, machines
reflect this.
I am rather baffled whenever I read Psion had milion users and yet
this was not enough for them. Plenty of people would consider
themselves lucky if their books, cars or games were bought by this
many. The attitude of Psion managers is totally disgusting for me,
unless I had not taken something into account.
Perhaps niche technical products should be sold by those who
understand niche markets. I imagine that if I came to manager of niche
recording label and suggested he should get rid of musicians and start
recording some generic crap outsourced from other side of the world to
"reduce costs" I guess I would fly out the window with his boot in my
arse. In contrast, I imagine that coming with similar proposition to
manager of huge (so called) tech firm I would get a bl**job and some
of his shares. But maybe I am romantic.
--
Regards,
Tomasz Rola
--
** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. **
** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home **
** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... **
** **
** Tomasz Rola mailto:tomasz_rola at bigfoot.com **
11 Jun
11 Jun
4:10 a.m.
On Mon, 10 Jun 2019 at 22:57, Tomasz Rola via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
I share the sentiment and I guess I could give similar description
(yours was very interesting, BTW).
Thank you!
If I had a privilege to own
Psion. But, when I went on for shopping, Psion was already bowing out
of the PDA market. So I bought Compaq iPAQ 3630, installed Familiar
Linux on it and hoped there would be a future when PDAs can be
bought. Hoho, I was so wrong. But while researching, I could on one
ocassion tap a bit on this excellent Psion 5mx keyboard in a shop. I
think about this keyboard to this very day.
Nothing ever was better and fitted in your pocket. *Nothing*.
About displays: my ideal display was the one from iPAQ
(they were also
used in other handheld PDAs of the time). It was called transflective
LCD. They are easily recognized, because the light can be permamently
turned off. "Normal" LCD has a backlight, i.e. a layer of
leds/incandescents which shine through from the back of the display
towards the user. Transflectives have special reflective layer in the
back, and a diode on a side. The external light reflects and shines
back through the crystal layer. Sorry for laymanish description, but I
hope I have got it right.
Anyway, such display looked best in full sun. The one in 3630 could
display 4096 colors (with spectrum slightly bent towards pinky). Later
iPAQ models could do 65k colors (again slightly bent, but this time
much less visible). I used mine PDA as a proto ebook reader, lots of
html and pdb material read outdoors. The same kind of LCD was to be
found in many phones.
Fascinating. I did not know transreflective LCDs were in PDAs. I only
knew of them from the One Laptop Per Child project. There was an
attempt to "productize" them as Pixel Qi but it died:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_Qi
For whatever reason, morons decided the shiny LCD
should be next best
thing. And transflective got lost. Just like this.
Nada. Appears like
the very meaning of "mobile" changed during last twenty years - first
it meant "outdoors" and now it means "from one couch to another,
indoors".
A tragic loss for all of us. Triple-layer transmissive LCDs are a
terrible bodge of a technology, and it is only because they are so bad
that things like OLED look like good alternatives.
But since it is all that anyone knows now, we think they are great.
Twenty years ago people using such tech were easily
falling into
"elite users" of some kind. Either because of earnings or because they
had nontrivial needs and were decided to satisfy them - and the
machines reflected this. Not so with todays users, and again, machines
reflect this.
Yes, true.
I am rather baffled whenever I read Psion had milion
users and yet
this was not enough for them. Plenty of people would consider
themselves lucky if their books, cars or games were bought by this
many. The attitude of Psion managers is totally disgusting for me,
unless I had not taken something into account.
Agreed.
This is something Planet Computers understands and I hope that it continues to.
Perhaps niche technical products should be sold by
those who
understand niche markets. I imagine that if I came to manager of niche
recording label and suggested he should get rid of musicians and start
recording some generic crap outsourced from other side of the world to
"reduce costs" I guess I would fly out the window with his boot in my
arse. In contrast, I imagine that coming with similar proposition to
manager of huge (so called) tech firm I would get a bl**job and some
of his shares. But maybe I am romantic.
:-D Excellent comparison!
--
Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lproven at gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven - Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven
UK: +44 7939-087884 - ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
5 Jun
5 Jun
10:04 a.m.
On 6/5/19 10:27 AM, John Labovitz via cctalk wrote:
Character-based I/O on mainframes and even
minicomputers was fairly rare
at that point. On some systems it was impossible; on others it was very
CPU-intensive. I remember trying to do character I/O on a Tandem NonStop;
it wasn?t easy, or effective. Having a dedicated microcomputer solved
a lot of problems.
Ah. Now the need for another computer makes sense.
My dad actually built a successful company in the
1980s to do just that:
he build front-end controllers, which were essentially large number
of serial ports connected to a rack of Z80 boards, which would then
be connected to a mini (a Tandem) or mainframe via some bulk-oriented
format. For example, I wrote code for him that let a typical terminal (eg,
Wyse, VT-100) emulate a Univac block-style terminal. All the input, screen
management, etc. was done on the Z80 machines, then shipped over in a
multiplex fashion first to the Tandem and then to a Univac as block forms.
ACK
You?re getting warmer. ;-)
Modems started out as straight modulators-demodulators, connecting two
remote devices (computers, terminals, printers) over a point-to-point
leased line specially installed from the local telephone company ?
basically like a T1 line would be installed today. The POTS line was
hard-wired (via screw-down terminals) on one side of the modem and the
digital data connector (eg, DB-25) on the other. Usually the connections
were always on; I suppose the billing was probably by data usage, or
even fixed price, instead of by time.
ACK
We used some 56 kbps (bit robbed) lines for terminal multiplexers at my
job around 2000. They were always on and (I think) just billed at a
monthly rate for the line.
Maybe someone created that monstrosity (;-), but the
typical usage was
that you used an acoustic coupler modem that had cups where a typical
handset would fit. The modem itself only had a data connection to the
terminal (or printer or card reader/punch). Next to the modem was a
regular telephone ? you dialed the number on the phone, and once
you heard the carrier squeal, you?d quickly set the handset into the
coupler. Usually you?d see a spurt of random characters on the screen
which was the modem getting confused by the carrier being gradually synced
up. To hang up, you?d simply pull the handset out of the coupler and
hang it up as normal.
ACK
I do recall a little handheld device with a touchtone
keyboard that you
could fit over the microphone of a normal handset. It wasn?t automated,
but at least you didn?t have to use the rotary dial. (This presumed,
of course, that the telco switch was DTMF-compatible.)
I remember things like that.
I also remember a pager for kids that didn't even have a display. It
simply dialed the number by playing the DTMF tones into a mouth piece.
--
Grant. . . .
unix || die
2:08 p.m.
This talk of auto-dialers reminded me of a couple of things from modem culture?
I ran a BBS when I was a teenager in Maryland in the early 80s. We only had one phone line
(like most everyone else), but being a BBS aficionado I?d heard of a technique called
?callback? that some BBSes implemented, which allowed for using a POTS line for both
dial-up modem and for voice. The idea was that if you wanted to dial into a BBS with
callback, you?d dial up, let it ring once, hang up, then call back; the modem on the BBS
system would only answer on the *second* call. The software (in my case, the BYE modem/IO
handler that run on my CP/M system) would watch the ring-detect line on the serial port,
and once it went high, it would set a timer for a little more than six seconds (2 for the
ring, 4 for the silence). If the timer expired, it would set a flag to answer on the
*next* ring ? which would have been the second call. If a ring came in before the timer
fired, it would ignore the call ? assuming it was *not* a computer calling in, but rather
a voice call. And if no call came in within a few seconds more, the state would reset for
a new call. It worked pretty well, as long as the BBS callers knew how to use callback.
After a few months of those shenanigans my parents allowed me to order a second dedicated
line, so they wouldn?t be woken up in the middle of the night.
The other thing I remember was discovering variable baud rates. The UART in my Heathkit
H89 could be set to *any* rate between 1 and 9600 (?) baud. (Setting it to 1 baud was very
educational!) Similarly, my Hayes Smartmodem would auto-detect both local and remote
speed. It turned out that even though the modem was rated for 300 baud, it could actually
be pushed to 450 or sometimes 600 ? and some other modems (like the PMMI 103, a popular
S-100 modem) would do the same. So I advertised both 300 & 450 baud for my BBS. 450
felt so fast! :)
?John
8 p.m.
On 6/5/19 3:08 PM, John Labovitz via cctalk wrote:
being a BBS aficionado I?d heard of a technique called
?callback?
that some BBSes implemented, which allowed for using a POTS line for
both dial-up modem and for voice. The idea was that if you wanted
to dial into a BBS with callback, you?d dial up, let it ring once,
hang up, then call back; the modem on the BBS system would only answer
on the *second* call.
That's a decidedly different meaning for callback than I'm used to hearing.
I'm used to it being applied in a security context. As in you would
call into a system, identify yourself, hang up, and then it would call
back the number stored on file for the account. So calls going in
opposing directions.
I guess this could have also been used to alter which end paid for
calls. The first call would be short and relatively inexpensive. The
second call (back) would be longer and could be expensive and take
advantage of better long distance rates as applicable.
The software (in my case, the BYE modem/IO handler
that run on
my CP/M system) would watch the ring-detect line on the serial port,
and once it went high, it would set a timer for a little more than
six seconds (2 for the ring, 4 for the silence). If the timer expired,
it would set a flag to answer on the *next* ring ? which would have
been the second call. If a ring came in before the timer fired, it
would ignore the call ? assuming it was *not* a computer calling in,
but rather a voice call. And if no call came in within a few seconds
more, the state would reset for a new call. It worked pretty well, as
long as the BBS callers knew how to use callback. After a few months
of those shenanigans my parents allowed me to order a second dedicated
line, so they wouldn?t be woken up in the middle of the night.
Intriguing technique.
--
Grant. . . .
unix || die
10:36 a.m.
On Wed, Jun 5, 2019 at 11:27 AM John Labovitz via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
I do recall a little handheld device with a touchtone
keyboard that you could fit
over the microphone of a normal handset. It wasn?t automated, but at least you
didn?t have to use the rotary dial. (This presumed, of course, that the telco switch
was DTMF-compatible.)
I still have one of those. I had it in my hand last month wondering
if I'd ever use it again. Maybe for a VCF display.
-ethan
10:38 a.m.
On Wed, 5 Jun 2019, Grant Taylor via cctalk wrote:
I have this mental picture, which I think is based on
something I've
seen at some point in the past, that was a device that attached /
actuated / ??? a traditional rotary dial phone. As in it had a finger
that interfaced with the dial and something that could rotate it to
dial the digit in question, rewind (term?), and dial the next digit in
question.
Typically a thick flat disk that clipped to the dial, with a motor and a
clutch to permit the dial and disk to return to rest position.
But, a FINGER is such a better visual image!
Prior to Carterfone V Western Electric, (1968) . . .
There were DAAs RENTED by TPC ("The Phone Company" (cf, "The
President's
Analyst")), dialers RENTED by TPC, and acoustic couplers in the
after-market.
There were devices that sat on top of the "hook" of the phone (where the
handset rested to hang up, with the handset on top of them. A solenoid
could lift the handset for "off-hook", and set it down again for hang-up.
In some cases, such as answering machines, that sandwich in between the
phone and handset had speaker and microphone, but I don't recall ever
seeing a modem made that way - "common sense" held that you needed
"cups"
for the handset for noise isolation.
Carterfone was extremely significant as it allowed connecting to the phone
line "if it did not damage or interfere with normal operations".
Carter started trying to peddle his systems in 1959, but AT&T
So, Carterfone is to thank for all direct connect telephone devices,
indeed, all "foreign attachments", even a plastic cup that clipped on the
phone handset for a little more privacy!
AT&T rejected ANYTHING that connected, on the grounds that even that
plastic privacy cup degraded the quality of the sound.
http://www.historyofcomputercommunications.info/Book/1/1.2CarterfoneATT_FCC…
Prior to Carterfone, you had acoustic couplers, switch-hook solenoids,
DAAs RENTED by TPC, and only TPC dialers. Once direct connection was
available, you got things like the PhoneMate dialer, and moving piece of
mylar with marks and photocells.
Later, "Touch tone" made it possible to "dial" by making noises into
the
phone, both simple dialers (cf. Hayes "ATDT") and simple devices to
implement the full set of DTMF tones (cf. blue boxes, and DTMF C-tone to
turn off FBI phone recording taps)
"Hayes Compatible" was a marketing term to describe anything that used the
same (orsimilar) commands as Hayes. But, Hayes, themselves, never fully
created a standard. Joe Campbell ("C Programmers Guide To Serial
Communications", "The RS232 Solution", etc.) once consulted for Hayes to
try to help them make such a standard out of the myriad devices they
already had extant.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
11:10 a.m.
But, a FINGER is such a better visual image!
There were devices that sat on top of the
"hook" of the phone (where the > handset rested to hang up, with the handset
on top of them. A solenoid > could lift the handset for "off-hook", and set
it down again for hang-up.
Did anyone ever make a "dialer" that operated by pressing/releasing the switch
hook? Seems a solenoid to do that would be a lot simpler than a "motorized
finger." Just curious.
Will
"A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add,
but when there is nothing left to take away." --? Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"The names of global variables should start with? ? // "? --?https://isocpp.org
12:28 p.m.
On Wed, Jun 5, 2019 at 11:38 AM Fred Cisin via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
wrote:
Prior to Carterfone V Western Electric, (1968) . . .
There were DAAs RENTED by TPC ("The Phone Company" (cf, "The
President's
Analyst")), dialers RENTED by TPC, and acoustic couplers in the
after-market.
[...]
Prior to Carterfone, you had acoustic couplers,
switch-hook solenoids,
DAAs RENTED by TPC, and only TPC dialers. Once direct connection was
available, you got things like the PhoneMate dialer, and moving piece of
mylar with marks and photocells.
The 1968 Carterfone decision did eventually result in customers being
allowed to hook their own devices up directly to the phone line, but
contrary to what a lot of online sources including Wikipedia claim, that
didn't really happen until the FCC promulgated the Part 68 regulations in
1975. The immediate reaction to Carterfone was that in 1968 Bell created a
"foreign attachment" tariff, which allowed customers to lease the type CBS
or CBT Data Access Arrangements (DAA), which included protective coupling
circuitry, and connect their own devices to the network only indirectly
through the DAA.
Starting in 1975, equipment could be sold for direct attachment if it met
the Part 68 requirements and was registered with the FCC. The equipment had
to bear a label with the Ringer Equivalency Number (REN), and the
subscriber was supposed to notify the phone company of the RENs of the
devices they were using. I don't know anyone who actually did so.
There is very little detail on this available online, but I found that
Google Books can show relevant excerpts from _Communciations Law and
Practice_ by Stuart N. Brotman, 2006 printing (originally published 1995).
See pages 5-19 and 5-20.
12:46 p.m.
> Prior to Carterfone V Western Electric, (1968) . .
.
On Wed, 5 Jun 2019, Eric Smith via cctalk wrote:
The 1968 Carterfone decision did eventually result in
customers being
allowed to hook their own devices up directly to the phone line, but
contrary to what a lot of online sources including Wikipedia claim, that
didn't really happen until the FCC promulgated the Part 68 regulations in
1975. The immediate reaction to Carterfone was that in 1968 Bell created a
"foreign attachment" tariff, which allowed customers to lease the type CBS
or CBT Data Access Arrangements (DAA), which included protective coupling
circuitry, and connect their own devices to the network only indirectly
through the DAA.
I remember well, seeing mention of Carterfone in a magazine (at a
newstand), at or shortly after the time.
I thought, "WOW! lots of aftermarket phones, better answering machines,
modems, not being asked to PAY for an extension, and neat stuff! But, I
wonder how many years it will be before that moves from theoretical
possibilities to actually being able to connect? How will TPC ("The
Presiden't Analyst") manage to make money off of it? Will they add
special noises to phone lines to disrupt modems, or will they peddle
s'posedly better lines for data use?"
There is very little detail on this available online,
but I found that
Google Books can show relevant excerpts from _Communciations Law and
Practice_ by Stuart N. Brotman, 2006 printing (originally published 1995).
See pages 5-19 and 5-20.
THANK YOU!!
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
8:06 p.m.
On 6/5/19 11:38 AM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:
Typically a thick flat disk that clipped to the dial,
with a motor and a
clutch to permit the dial and disk to return to rest position.
That sounds suspiciously like you've seen something like I was trying to
describe.
But, a FINGER is such a better visual image!
;-)
Prior to Carterfone V Western Electric, (1968) . . .
There were DAAs RENTED by TPC ("The Phone Company" (cf, "The
President's
Analyst")), dialers RENTED by TPC, and acoustic couplers in the
after-market.
There were devices that sat on top of the "hook" of the phone (where the
handset rested to hang up, with the handset on top of them.? A solenoid
could lift the handset for "off-hook", and set it down again for hang-up.
In some cases, such as answering machines, that sandwich in between the
phone and handset had speaker and microphone, but I don't recall ever
seeing a modem made that way - "common sense" held that you needed
"cups" for the handset for noise isolation.
I've seen something conceptually similar within the last 10 years to
take a handset off hook in support of a wireless headset.
Carterfone was extremely significant as it allowed
connecting to the
phone line "if it did not damage or interfere with normal operations".
ACK
Carter started trying to peddle his systems in 1959,
but AT&T So,
Carterfone is to thank for all direct connect telephone devices, indeed,
all "foreign attachments", even a plastic cup that clipped on the phone
handset for a little more privacy!
AT&T rejected ANYTHING that connected, on the grounds that even that
plastic privacy cup degraded the quality of the sound.
http://www.historyofcomputercommunications.info/Book/1/1.2CarterfoneATT_FCC…
I can't say as I'm surprised.
Prior to Carterfone, you had acoustic couplers,
switch-hook solenoids,
DAAs RENTED by TPC, and only TPC dialers. Once direct connection was
available, you got things like the PhoneMate dialer, and moving piece of
mylar with marks and photocells.
Later, "Touch tone" made it possible to "dial" by making noises into
the
phone, both simple dialers (cf. Hayes "ATDT") and simple devices to
implement the full set of DTMF tones (cf. blue boxes, and DTMF C-tone to
turn off FBI phone recording taps)
"Hayes Compatible" was a marketing term to describe anything that used
the same (orsimilar) commands as Hayes.? But, Hayes, themselves, never
fully created a standard.? Joe Campbell ("C Programmers Guide To Serial
Communications", "The RS232 Solution", etc.) once consulted for Hayes to
try to help them make such a standard out of the myriad devices they
already had extant.
ACK
--
Grant. . . .
unix || die
10:10 a.m.
On Tue, Jun 4, 2019 at 8:30 PM allison via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
wrote:
Keep in mins the hardware for auto dial required some
for of micro and
that was a post 1974 thing for the most part. A few before that had a
lot of TTL state machine to do that. They obviously weren't cheap.
AFAIK the first commercially dialer for data use was the Bell 801A
Automatic Calling Unit from 1964. It didn't contain a state machine any
more complicated than a four-bit counter to send the appropriate number of
dial pulses, though in 1964 even that was a fair bit of circuitry. As with
other Western Electric equipment, it wasn't cheaply made, and also was not
inexpensive to rent. The only thing preventing other companies from making
less expensive alternatives was that customers were still not allowed to
connect their own equipment directly to the PSTN at that time. The host
computer presented one digit at a time to it over a four-bit parallel
interface (using either EIA RS-232 levels or relay contact closures,
depending on model).
The 801C from 1965 used DTMF rather than pulse, and somewhat ironically its
innards are actually _simpler_ than the 801A, because it doesn't need the
four-bit counter. I suspect that it generated the DTMF using almost the
same circuit as the original DTMF encoders in telephones, with a single
transistor and multiple inductors. However, unlike the telephone, it needed
circuitry to decode the four bit BCD input from the customer equipment to
the two-of-four selections for the DTMF encoder.
4 Jun
4 Jun
7:31 p.m.
On Tue, Jun 4, 2019 at 9:45 PM Grant Taylor via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
Does anyone have any experience working with modems
that didn't include
internal / auto dialers?
Yes. I used to make and sell sync serial protocol engines (COMBOARDs)
that often were used to dial up an IBM Mainframe. Sync modems of the
80s often did not have built-in auto-diallers.
Here's one we used to use, a Motorola UDS 801 ACU (Automatic Call Unit).
http://nwrusa.com/Networking?product_id=17371
https://www.arcelect.com/801_autodialer.PDF
I still have one on a shelf in the basement.
I think they were separate devices, which probably
means that they
likely had separate serial ports to talk to each of them. Did they
support some sort of pass through? Or did they really require two
serial ports on the host?
Yes (though the USD 801 ACU could be controlled by a parallel port
_or_ a serial port) In our case, our product had a sync serial port
to talk the the Host (implemented with either a COM 5025 or a Z8530).
To run the 801 ACU, we soaked up an async port on the VAX as well.
Sometime after 1990, I added V.25bis support to our product so we
could control autodialers of the day.
-ethan
7:57 p.m.
See the v6 dn (IV) man page:
http://man.cat-v.org/unix-6th/4/dn
NAME
dn - DN-11 ACU interface
DESCRIPTION
The dn? files are write-only. The permissible codes are:
0-9 dial 0-9
: dial *
; dial #
- 4 second delay for second dial tone
= end-of-number
The entire telephone number must be presented in a single
write system call.
It is recommended that an end-of-number code be given even
though not all ACU's actually require it.
....
8:30 p.m.
On Tue, Jun 4, 2019 at 10:57 PM Phil Budne via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
See the v6 dn (IV) man page:
http://man.cat-v.org/unix-6th/4/dn
NAME
dn - DN-11 ACU interface
The DN11 is a Unibus interface that drives an 801 ACU with a parallel
connection. I hadn't remembered it until you mentioned it (we never
had one at Software Results). DN11 docs are on Bitsavers.
Good catch.
-ethan
5 Jun
5 Jun
8:07 p.m.
I think the DN11 had several options available, but don't recall much about
them. I have one left if you need a look at it.
Paul
On Tue, Jun 4, 2019 at 9:57 PM Phil Budne via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
wrote:
See the v6 dn (IV) man page:
http://man.cat-v.org/unix-6th/4/dn
NAME
dn - DN-11 ACU interface
DESCRIPTION
The dn? files are write-only. The permissible codes are:
0-9 dial 0-9
: dial *
; dial #
- 4 second delay for second dial tone
= end-of-number
The entire telephone number must be presented in a single
write system call.
It is recommended that an end-of-number code be given even
though not all ACU's actually require it.
....
4 Jun
4 Jun
8:50 p.m.
On Wed, Jun 5, 2019 at 2:45 AM Grant Taylor via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
Does anyone have any experience working with modems that didn't include
internal / auto dialers?
Only from the side of the things that talked to them, like the HP11284 interface
for the HP9830
They came up in a conversation in a newsgroup and I realized that I know
of them, but know virtually nothing about them.
I think they were separate devices, which probably means that they
likely had separate serial ports to talk to each of them. Did they
support some sort of pass through? Or did they really require two
serial ports on the host?
It wasn't normally a serial port. It was on a DB25 connector, and used
the same voltages as RS232, but the number to dial was sent a digit
at a time over 4 lines (obvious BCD code, I am not sure if the other
6 possibilities were used), along with a digit strobe line, various status
lines, etc.
The standard was, I think, RS366, but I have never managed to find
any real information on it.
-tony
5 Jun
5 Jun
7:51 a.m.
On Tue, Jun 4, 2019 at 10:50 PM Tony Duell via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
On Wed, Jun 5, 2019 at 2:45 AM Grant Taylor via
cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
The UDS 801 ACU supported either serial or parallel over the same DB25
connector.
Does anyone have any experience working with modems that didn't include
internal / auto dialers?
It wasn't normally a serial port. It was on a DB25 connector, and used
the same voltages as RS232... ...but the number to dial was sent a digit
at a time over 4 lines (obvious BCD code, I am not sure if the other
6 possibilities were used), along with a digit strobe line, various status
lines, etc.
Yes. I think some of the other 6 codes were used for other dial
symbols (',' for pause, for example) but I didn't quickly find a
definitive list.
The standard was, I think, RS366, but I have never
managed to find
any real information on it.
Yes. RS366 was the standard for parallel-driven autodiallers, later
EIA-366. Also, V.25 is an autodialler standard.
There's some implementation detail in the DEC DN11 docs on Bitsavers.
-ethan
1973
days inactive
1979
days old
53 comments
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