Linode.com Forum

[caker]

My first modem was a ....

[jpw]

http://bbslist.textfiles.com/609/oldschool.html

[tierra]

jpw wrote: http://bbslist.textfiles.com/609/oldschool.html

Jason Scott is quite the guy... I was about to plug his BBS Documentary, then noticed you already linked to one of his sites.

http://bbsdocumentary.com/

I can't imagine how he managed to get so much filmed when the times I've seen him in person, he always has some story to tell. I've sat and listened to him go on about his old band and a number of other things for probably 3 hours while the waiters kept giving us weird looks because we had a lot to talk about and didn't see any reason we had to leave. Don't get me wrong, it's all really interesting and really funny stories, but I can't imagine how everyone he interviewed managed to get in what they wanted to say.

[Shermozle]

300 baud modem that didn't even auto-dial! You had to dial the number with a normal phone, wait for the screeches, flick the switch and put down the phone.

I was AMAZED at how fast things were when we upgraded to 2400. I could even bear to turn ANSI on!

[bji]

This was in 1989. Even then it seemed slow. My friend met his first girlfriend on a local BBS though, pretty impressive for 1989 when there were only 3 females on the 'net.

When I went to college in 1990 I impressed my friend by telling him that our "modems" (ie ethernet cards) on campus operated at the equivalent of over 1 million baud.

[sweh]

caker wrote: My first modem was a ....
My first modem wasn't even Hayes compatible. I think it was a PACE produce and used commands such as "DSN" (Dial Stored Number). Hmm. That was in 1990, and they were hand-me-downs from my company, who had replaced them with Hayes 1200 baud modems.

I _think_ the high speed version was 1200/1200, and the normal version was 300/300.

My cousin used to have a 1200/75 acoustic coupler before that :-)

[mastabog]

My first not-owned modem was a 2400 baud, hayes compat back in 1991 and i couldnt get it to work on 2400 on our lines so I mainly was using 300 at first ... loved to send text just a bit faster than if i was to type it by hand :). It did it's job ... anyone remembers Fidonet? i remember getting up early before going to school and fetch my messages (was only a fidonaut then) and replied up to the second it began to be too late to reach school :)

After that, I got my first external 9600 USR Sportster (quite a toy!!) and started my own BBS and becaue a fidonet point ... I remember hiding the modem between the clothes, shut the wardrobe's doors to be able to sleep; hated those damn clicks :P. Poor BBS lasted only 1 year or so .. Internet took over :)

[kiomava]

When I was about 8 my mother was taking classes at a university, and I would use her account to mess around with unix in the labs while she was in class. What I remember--

/usr/games/gsh
set TERM=adm3a
fortune

Eventually at home we got a 300 baud coupler thing that the regular phone head set squeezed in to. A borrowed ADM-3A plugged in to that. At some point I think we acquired a Wyse. Oh and one time I accidentally rendered her account unusable by changing her .login file, I remember that vividly. Oh and I used vi to do my writing homework. At 300 baud, you really appreciate the efficiency of vi commands. My how things have changed.

[tierra]

Well... aparently Jason Scott didn't like my praise and plug to his documentary in this thread, and decided to bring in up in a channel we both frequent. I figured since he wanted to make it public how he felt about my comment since he announced this in a public channel without once bringing it up with me privately, I felt everyone here should know how Jason likes it when people praise him (btw, SketchCow == Jason Scott):

Quote: <SketchCow> Tierra, was it you who posted the thing about me in a web forum about not being quiet?
<tierra|h> SketchCow, ?
<SketchCow> A tierra did, how many tierras could there be.
<tierra|h> what forums?
<SketchCow> http://www.linode.com/forums/archive/o_t/t_1204/my_first_modem_was_a_.....html
<dataw0lf> yup it was him
<SketchCow> Was wondering.
<tierra|h> I said "quite" not "quiet"
<tierra|h> and yeah, that's me
<SketchCow> I can't imagine how he managed to get so much filmed when the times I've seen him in person, he always has some story to tell. I've sat and listened to him go on about his old band and a number of other things for probably 3 hours while the waiters kept giving us weird looks because we had a lot to talk about and didn't see any reason we had to leave. Don't get me wrong, it's all really interesting and really funny stories, but I can't imagine how everyone
<tierra|h> yeah, that was me
<dataw0lf> ooh, that hurt.
<SketchCow> Short answer: It's called appropriate time and place
<eco|w> Sue him for defamation!
<eco|w> That's what you get for plugin' him.
<tierra|h> I don't see how what I said was bad though
<eco|w> Oh...it was
<eco|w> Believe me.
* optikal shrugs
<SketchCow> Let's phrase it this way.
<SketchCow> The gist of the message can be read as "How did Jason actually film anyone talking, he never shuts up and how could the subjects get a word in edgewise."
<SketchCow> And the answer is, of course, "Jason knew there was a time and place for talking, and during interviews he had travelled hundreds or thousands of miles to conduct, was not one of them."
<tierra|h> but no one said that... it wasn't like I was supporting someone's comment that you "never let the interviewee get a word in edgewise"... but if that's the way you feel, I'll be careful to stop and think about how you would take what I would say in the future...
<dataw0lf> heh.
<SketchCow> " Don't get me wrong, it's all really interesting and really funny stories, but I can't imagine how everyone he interviewed managed to get in what they wanted to say."
<SketchCow> How the **** else am I supposed to take that?
<SketchCow> It's not a matter of "I didn't know how you would take that."
<SketchCow> What it came down to was "I didn't know Jason would ever find that and read it."
<dataw0lf> or, a matter of, 'it's his ****ing opinion, and if you're insecure enough to take it personally... '
<tierra|h> I personally felt the need to express the fact that you are a very interesting person with a lot of good stories to tell... which I viewed to be the main point of what I was saying, and ending it with a little humor... jesus christ.. **** if I say another word about you again... I don't see anyone in the thread afterwards saying anything as if they took it that way... I think your the only one who did
<SketchCow> OK, first of all, dataw0lf, you're a speed bump.
<tierra|h> Your taking this way too far SketchCow
<optikal> i honestly dont see how you are taken such offense by it.. just take it with a wiff and move on.. he obviously didnt intended to directly offend you, and as dataw0lf said.. its his opinion
<dataw0lf> a speed bump eh? haha.
<optikal> i like speed bumps
<SketchCow> Yeah, a speed bump.
<SketchCow> You know.
<SketchCow> A thing that lies in the road and does **** all.
<dataw0lf> I do **** alot, but not 'all'.
<SketchCow> Except slow down people trying to go somewhere.
<SketchCow> You know. A waste. A useless lump of flesh. A killfile tester.
<optikal> wow.. you obviously dont even know dataw0lf
<dataw0lf> haha, I could take this on a 'flaming' level, but I won't.
<optikal> lol
<dataw0lf> However, taking something personal that somebody says on the internet about you expresses enough.

[Ciaran]

Wow.

He sure takes it personally, doesn't he? :/

[taupehat]

Good grief.

Back to topic, my first modem was an actual hayes-compatible 1200. Used it primarily to connect to Trex (beaucoup extra points if you can guess my userid there, and no, it's not taupehat). I'll never forget when I first saw an internal modem - that thing was cooler than a digital wristwatch!

Couple of fun things back then... first of all, call wasting. If you were there, you'll recall that trex1 was almost always full up, and trex2 was usually full as well. But call waiting had just hit the scene (this was 1990, remember?), and I don't even know if there was a way to disable it at first. The savvy trex user quickly learned the phone numbers of all the members who had call waiting. The trick was to setup your AT command (if you didn't already have it scripted), and then ring the hapless victim's phone twice before hanging up and quickly hitting Return to execute the dialup. Since error correction basically didn't exist, the call waiting beeps would cause a disconnect, and you had an open line :roll:

The other "fun" thing that probably wasn't much fun was people using acoustic couplers... and listening to their music too loud. A conversation with such a person on typically looked like something like this:
Code: batman: Yeah, we're gonna meet up at dennys for coffee, el camino.  Come with us!
dipstick: ssssssssssssssjjjjjs;;;;ssssssssssssssjjjjjs;;;;
astaire: Can't.  Homework.
dipstick: ssssssssssssssjjjjjs;;;;
random: Turn the s*** down!  You're giving line noise again!
dipstick: Huh?ssssssssssssssjjjjjs;;;;ssssssssssssssjjjjjs;;;;ssssssssssssssjjjjjs;;;;
astaire: is that what thatt is?
dipstick: ssssssssssssssjjjjjs;;;;ssssssssssssssjjjjjs;;;;
(dipstick: modem dropped)

Ahh, the good old days. And if I got some of the syntax or feel of it wrong, forgive me. It's been fifteen years and a lot of brain damage since I was last on trex. But that was the gist.

It's so nice to see how IRC has come along since then. Oh wait, it hasn'-!- taupehat [~heh@taupehat.com] has quit [Connection reset by peer]

[zunzun]

I wondered what the "interweb" was, never having
heard the term before. Now I know:

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=interweb

Ouch to anyone selecting this choice on the poll.

[NecroBones]

Ciaran wrote: Wow.

He sure takes it personally, doesn't he? :/

Yeah, geez, I took the original post as praise (perhaps back-handed praise)... I didn't read negativity into it. It's a shame he reacted that way. I've done that before though. Sometimes we geeks aren't as socially adept as we'd like. :-/

[Asiadeep]

I started with a 14.4 man. I guess that isn't that old compared to some of you other old timers eh? ;)

[aag]

Where is the checkbox for 110 baud?