We know the computer/online world moves fast. But there was a time when it was slower yet moved faster.
How can that be? If you were online in the days when everyone had a dial-up modem, then you know how. All the BBS’s and proprietary networks were text-based, and that text scrolled up the screen without a stop.
Well, unless you used ctrl-Q and ctrl-S (hey, remember those commands?) to pause or resume the flow. At 300 baud, reading was easy. When speeds picked up to 1200 and beyond, those pause/resume commands sure became necessary.
And I think that’s the main reason why I still think of the ‘net as being static, even after all these years. There was an immediacy to the scrolling text that pages just don’t have. Even if I was reading last night’s board messages, the streaming text just seemed more “now”.
On the other hand, with “static” (so to speak) pages, the dial-up modems are at something of a disadvantage. Especially really slow ones. Ones like, say, an Acoustic Coupler Modem circa 1964, running at a spiffy 300 baud.
Would it even work? Is there anyone daring enough to attempt the ‘net at that speed? And could you read War and Peace while a page loaded? Why not find out, by visiting mentalfloss.com and seeing the modem in action (or inaction?). Now, that’s retro!
My first Internet connection was through a dial-up at the local state college back in 1992. I wasn’t a student, but was friends with the network administrator so he fixed me up with an account, basically a Unix shell where I could use Lynx, Pine, Gopher, Tin, and other text based programs. This was done at 2400 baud, but Mosaic was in it’s infancy and you didn’t have the graphics rich pages that you do now. Browsing with Lynx, which was text based, was faster than many sites today on 56k dialup, especially if anything like Flash or a large number of ads are present.
I had a 14.4 USR HST modem in 1992, but back then the 14.4 HST was a proprietary standard, and would only communicate with another USR HST at that speed. It would fall back to 2400 baud for connections with a different manufacturer.
To me, the sweet spot for a text based BBS was 1200 baud. It was like a teleprompter at that speed, almost perfectly matching my reading speed. When I went to a 2400 baud modem the text was transmitted faster than I could read it.
Heh - that was a lot of fun to watch. Thanks for the link!
what was astonding was the time frame of the modem.
I was using 300 baud in 1984/5, moved up to 1200 in late 85 or 86 and then 2400 or 14.4 by 87.
so when the video showed 1964, i was NO way. ok it was an OLD ibm unit and really wasn’t a modem for micro computers. more like MAINFRAMES in 64 or a really costly Mini.
I believe this was the actual modem used to launch the first session of Dunnigan’s 100 YEARS WAR on GEnie.*
*Lie.