retrocomputing

Hayes 1200. Anyone know why these things were built to be bombproof? Always kinda wondered about that...

300 baud home made.

300 baud C64

First one that I had myself was a 300 baud acoustic modem. It came in a wooden box that was about the size of a shoe box but more square.

My brother had an acoustic coupled 300 baud modem for his C64, but that stuff was off limits to me. My first was a 2400 baud on ISA card, I bought for the family IBM XT Clone when I was maybe 13, I came up with the money with a hustle. I bought an old lionel train set at a garage sale with $20, sold it to a train shop for $100 (they probably screwed me over). It was my first pc component install, I remember setting the dip switches for the IRQ channel.

I don't know the model, but my first modem was 2400 baud

Downloading anything took forever but it was still a magical experience to me!

I couldn't figure out how to silence the modem sounds either (if it was even possible) so every time I wanted to use the computer when someone in the house was sleeping I had to pray the connection sounds wouldn't wake anyone up!

C64 VICModem. 300 baud, manual dial. :)

300baud from work. Fun times logging in with it. Eventually moved to 2400baud.

Supra 2400, to LineLink 144E, to Practical Peripherals 28.8 (all of these external). Being a kid I was limited to upgrading when birthday and holiday money was saved up.

To one way broadband with this weird box containing a 56kbps modem you plugged a phone cord into for the uplink and a 1.5mbps downlink over cable coax. Bi directional broadband wasnt available yet.

Apple Geoport Telecom Adapter: 9600 baud.

I’m reading up on it now to confirm actual details match my memory, and seeing that it was software upgradable up to 33.6 kbps. I don’t think we ever actually did that, seeing as how our Macintosh Centris 660AV was never upgraded past the System 7.1 it came with.

14.4k that was more consistent as 9600. Packard Bell ISA modem.

Later I went 33.6 and went off to college with a 56k external modem that was supported by FreeBSD.

I think I used to be able to tell the different speeds by the handshake sound.

Mine was a 300/1200 baud modem which if memory serves correctly ran mostly @ 300.

The TelePort Gold II came in at a speedy 14.4 Kbps. It came with my Macintosh Performa.

Acoustic-coupling modem for a TI 99/4a. 300 baud?

Hayes 2400 baud external modem with the red leds. Technically it was my dad's but I had procomm plus on a floppy and would sneak over and use it while he was at work.

I was late to the internet party, and got a pre-owned 33.6k. I don't remember the brand, but I still have it stashed somewhere, just for the nostalgia. Had it in my desk drawer to muffle the sound a bit. I figured out later I could turn that off. But I needed the sound to hear if I got a successful connection. Since my mother was sceptical about the phone line being blocked, I was not allowed to use a modem at home initially. So I used it in the night, to avoid detection. I had planned to just use it for essential surfing and patch downloads for games. But the addiction was too severe. After one month had passed, I figured out the phone bill would not go unnoticed, so I had to confess. So we agreed that I could use it after ten in the evening, and I would pay the usage part of the phone bill. I think it was close to $100 a month usually. And that was even if I had free fast internet where I studied... I never have paid so much for internet after that.

It was probably rocket fuel for a really bad sleeping habit (or complete lack of sleep), but I would not trade those years of late night chatting, surfing, mud and usenet for anything.

Later before I moved out, I got a 56k internal modem. But it was so unstable at max speed, I just ran it at 33.6k.

2400 baud modem in an Altima 286 luggable (CGA LCD monochrome screen) in 1990. Hello CompuServe! And dialing into the Sun SPARCservers at work (oh yeah, remote working, 1993). Then used a USR 56k modem with a Sun SPARCstation 20 to connect to my ISP. The SS20 served as the firewall/router/DHCP server for my home LAN, which quickly grew to include NeXT, Sun and SGI workstations as companies cast them off to save money with the advent of the Intel/MS hegemony. That setup is still down in the computing cave, should the fiber-optic-cable-eating viruses grown in some corporate arcology ever be unleashed and we are back to copper POTS again...

300 baud, I wish I could remember what brand it was. I think I had it hooked up to my Apple ][+ and dialed in to College.

It was a Radio Shack 300 baud modem. A little googling seems to indicate is would likely have been a Tandy DCM-3 “Direct Connect” (as opposed to acoustic coupler) modem.

It was in-line between the wall and a phone so you would pick up the phone, dial the number, head the modem tone, press a red button on the top of the modem and hang up the phone.

Nothing very exotic: USRobotics 14.4

Apple Personal Modem 300/1200 on my Apple IIgs.

My first modem was a Dataphone s21 (German Akustikkoppler) for the Commodore C64. It gave me breath-taking 300 baud on the data highway (aka boards).

A thoroughly obsolete 1200bps Racal-Vadic thing that didn't do the Hayes command set. Its command set was sufficiently different to AT that I couldn't configure my terminal program to control it, so I'd pick up the phone, dial whichever BBS I wanted to call, wait for the beep, push the connect button on the modem's front panel, and put down the phone.

I think it was sufficiently obsolete that the BBSes I called would have had 9600bps or 14.4kbps modems by then.

Found the manual! https://usermanual.wiki/m/e841e449995c65b1eb3d261c6cec7d97d5b42039de6114e9fed37628782b868a.pdf

14.4k. Then 28.8k. Then 56k. Then T1 from my local computer group, and finally cable... fiber is coming this year.

I'm going to serve 2600.network over fiber. Somehow I wound up at the beginning.

1989: Radio Shack Direct-Connect Modem DCM-6 (300 baud, no autodial)

28.8k, can't remember the brand. 33.6 later on, and then finally a 56k, such a big upgrade!

Then I got 4/7/20/1000 broadband.

Don't remember any other details about the modem other than the speed (56k). Also, that it was significantly cheaper to dial-up during the night. I guess that could be the reason why I grew up as a night owl. 😅

2400 on a 386SX IIRC, I was late to the game. I started connecting when I moved to Coherent OS from DOS. I used kermit to dial into work. Work would then call back so I would avoid any charges:)

They had USENET on a SUNOS plus I could download source for items I wanted.

I wish I could remember but I know we were quite late adopters so it would have been reasonably fast. My family first got a modem because my brother was stuck at home with a long term illness so he was tutored remotely over telnet for a while.

I don't really remember before broadband. I just have to read about the concept and buy slower, louder internet whenever I have the money. Haha.

(Actually, I think coding my own could be a pretty neat project)

"Zoltrix" 14.4k internal here!

My first own modem was a US Robotics Sportster Winmodem 28.8Kbps. It did have fax capabilities. But the first modem I used I think it was a Accura modem.

A 14.4k from Hayes. It's what came with my IBM Aptiva. They barely mentioned modem functionality, it was to be used to send and receive faxes.

Around 1991 I spent $300 of money saved to buy a 14.4 modem. I can’t remember the brand. But of course the speed upgrades kept coming and I kept buying until DSL arrived. What a fun time those early years were.

Unsure, some sort of 14.4kbps PCI modem that was very outdated when I started using it in my youth. We had broadband, but it was only for one machine and I was only allowed to use some random free ISP (NetZero maybe?) to keep my time on the internet limited or something.

Commodore 300 Guess how fast

https://www.pagetable.com/?p=1644

Applied Engineering DataLink 1200 baud for my //e, purchased at their office in Addison.

My first modem was 110 baud acoustic coupler modem that I got from military surplus. I couldn't afford the modem Commodore sold for the VIC-20, so I figured out how to wire this thing in.

I didn't really do all that much with it, because not too much later I got a better job so upgraded to a Laser whatever clone of the Apple//c and a 1200 baud modem.

Commodore 1670 at 1200 baud. Good times were had.

I had the VicModem, but don’t recall how fast it was. It was often take. From me as a form of punishment. I’d say it was in the locked drawer more often than connected to the computer.

ZyXEL U-1496E which, if I recall correctly, was up to 19.2 Kbps.

Some 14.4 kbps modem...I recall sometimes having to deal with BBSes that only supported 9600 bits per second. It was frustrating.

Now, on the desk in front of me, is a smartphone with 5G and wifi that'll do nearly 300 Mbps -- speedtest just said 274 Mbps. Let's see, that's...about 19000 times faster...

1200 baud at the time 9600 was the norm. Dad didn't know that they would autonegotiate, and had a 1200 baud modem at work, so...

Intel 9600EX! (on a 386 SX 20, iirc)

9600. I remember when we upgraded to 14400 it felt like light speed.

2400... in 1993