Modems: 60 Years of Hooking Up

[James R. Coplin]

One of my coolest geek party tricks was that back in the day of coupling
modems (the kind where you have to put the phone receiver in the cups) I
could whistle the handshaking pitches and connect faster than letting the
device do it.  Unfortunately, rising baud rates soon put the pitch out of
range for my talents and I had to develop other stupid skills - like tearing
phone books in half.

James R. Coplin

> -----Original Message-----
> From: music-bar-bounces at lists.music-bar.org [mailto:music-bar-
> bounces at lists.music-bar.org] On Behalf Of Gert van Santen
> Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2011 8:14 AM
> To: Music-bar
> Subject: Re: Modems: 60 Years of Hooking Up
> 
> Op 22-2-2011 14:57, Ron West schreef:
> > Enjoy!
> >
> >
> http://www.pcworld.com/article/218274/modems_60_years_of_hooking_up.htm
> l
> 
> Modems... I'm glad those days are gone.
> 
> I remember clearly - and it's not even that long ago; 1998,
> perhaps - that I decided it might be worth to download an Apple
> update during the night. It was a whopping thirty something
> megabytes, and I wasn't even sure what it would cost me, but the
> thought was so cool that I went for it.
> 
> So I started the thing, and the modem began downloading with 3
> kb/s (yes, that's 3 kilobytes per second), and I still remember
> very clearly saying to Kristin,
> 
> "Wow! I'm downloading with 3 kb/s!!! With a bit of luck this will
> only take 3 hours!!"
> 
> And then I started babbling on about how I was sure we would be
> able to download with at least 100 kb/s within the next 5 years,
> and how that would perhaps change the world...
> 
> Now I can - theoretically - download with 120 MB/s (megabit). To
> be honest, I haven't seen anything go faster than 95, but still...
> 
> cheers, and a wonderful day to you all :-)
> 
> Gert
> 
> --
> 
> ----------
> gert van santen
> www.gertvansanten.nl
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