K.C. (a.ka. “Phreakmonkey”) has a Livermore Data Systems “Model A” acoustic coupler modem, a 300 baud modem from the ’60s—”one of the oldest modems of still in existence. It was given to me by the widow of an IBM engineer.”
So, so awesome. If I were a fiction writer, I’d do a short story about an alternate present where broadband never came to be, but the entire world was connected through analog, low-baud modems. [via Waxy Waxy Waxy!]
You look and sound just like Tom Hanks !!!!!!!!!!!
Umm, I once used an NCR 2600 thermal teleprinter with accoustic coupler to chat on the IRC system at cleveland.freenet.edu in 1987. Of course, I had to dial into the Gandalf switch at the local college, hop the link from there to the corral.****.edu, then telnet from there to cleveland.freenet.edu… but hey…
I was an Atarian, and would stop at no ends to communicate with my fellow Atarians.Now I’ve got the itch to dial ***-2489 to see if there is still a carrier there.
This video brought back memories, pleasant, and not so pleasant.
Thanks!
(oh, and as a parting shot, if the old Sysop from said college reads this… MO QL=0000SYST 
)
Too awesome.
FAKE!!!
that video isn’t from 1964 – they didn’t have laptops back then.
I was an office manager for an organisation that had an office in Brussels whilst we all worked int he London office. They used to spend thousands in fax calls every month until someone told them to use email. There were only a handful of ISPs at the the time and as we didn’t have an IT dept I decided to try and set up the modem myself; I learnt all about stop, data and parity bits in the process as this was way before ISPs would supply a setup program on floppy. Before then I had rarely used a computer as I wasn’t interested in playing games and could do most of my work on paper but finding usenet and irc and realising I could use the PC to communicate was amazing and has eventually led me to a career in IT. All thanks to a low baud modem.
I know astonishingly little about what modems do, what a baud is, etc. But this was amazing to watch. My mind was pretty much blown when he (spoiler alert?) physically nestled the phone receiver into the box. And Joel, I actually caught this over on mental_floss before seeing it here and reading your comment, and had that very same thought before about an alternate world where we still had machines like this.
“If I were a fiction writer, I’d do a short story about an alternate present…”
that would have to fall into the horror category then
…If the guy who did this trick is reading this, I have only two words for you:
NO CARRIER
…Failing that:
+++
In the first few years of the 21st century we were still using a modem from 1977 at work. And in 1977 2400 baud was a kicken piece of equipment.
SO cool!
When I was in middle school in the early 80′s we (the A.V. club) used to connect to a state college mainframe to play Star Trek on a terminal using a 150 baud modem.
When they gave us a 300 baud one it was like Christmas to us!
GREAT STUFF!
Oh, you yunguns. This is how we did it 30 years ago. I dunno about 1964 (I was born that year) but we were abusing acoustic modems through the 80s, yes. The mere tap of control_a SHUTDOWN would have killed HP’s American midwest region everything. As a smart early hacker, I downloaded all their tech, instead. And got a job.
2400 was my first modem, which probably dates me pretty well. The hayes set was always there for me.. it would be quite neat to get the details of how computers negotiated communications prior to that. I wonder how much background work the creator of the video had to do to get his terminal server to recognize the calling device.
In the region of 1993-1995 my parents bought me a 28.8 modem for Christmas, which is only interesting because after I got it installed the entire family clustered around the computer watching text load faster than it could be read. Sure don’t get wonderment like that anymore.
My first modem was a 300-baud accountical modem for our TI-99/4A.
http://www.mainbyte.com/ti99/hardware/modem.html.
What memories. Remember how hi-tech xmodem, then ymodem, then zmodem transfers where? In retrospect, I’m coming to terms with the degree to which I sure had a geeky childhood.
I wish there was a quiz to test how much of the hayes command set I can remember. Anyone seen one out there?
ATA
Memories … started a new business in 1974. In the early 1980′s, purchased my first business computer, IBM System 23 (main storage – two built-in 8 inches floppies, 1.3MB per floppy). Within in few years needed inventory data dumps from our 13 outside satellite locations. They were running Radio Shacks Model 100 notebooks (the forerunners of present day notebooks). We had been using cassette tapes to move info. The Radio Shack Model 100′s had a built in 300 Baud modems which attached to phone with “Acoustics Cups”. Using a Radio Shack Model 80(?) desktop at office, outside Model 100 connected. A lot of failed communications due to line noise. One location could not successfully link in. Tracked problem down to a flickering florescent light. Shut light off, communication worked. Couple of years later upgraded Model 100 with external 1200 baud modems (wired to phone line). When the first session of all outside locations linked in .. I thought I died and went to heaven. They connected, com’ed their files fast, all in one session attempt. I was in 7th heaven.!!! By the mid 90′s main office was upgraded to a IBM AS400 and outside running PC 386′s Communications became totally automated. When outside PC hit a predetermined dollar sale, system would ask for permission to communicate with home office (dedicated PC for communication, linked to our as400). Manager would click “yes” and communication session would automatically commence. We were now including full customer tracking and sending down inventory deliveries which would update offsite location inventory after a successful session. On our end information would automatically process and moved to our as400 which presented up to 7 lines (vertical) of inventory / customer information per item in columns. One screen view would allow all 13 offsite locations to be viewed (horizontal) simultaneously. A sweet process, a long “work in progress” from the beginning .. a 300 baud acoustic cup.
I think all steampunks should be forced to connect to the web this way
Please tell me that you changed your username and password. Watching your fingers dial the number and type your info makes the number and password easily guessable. I’d pan up the video on those parts next time. Cheers.
Thank you Joel and Phreakmonkey for the trip in the wayback machine. I had forgotten the thrill of BBSing with a DOS-based terminal program. Maybe it’s just my tendency to romanticize the past, but nothing today seems as fun as that was for me.
My first modem was capable of 300 baud and also a peculiar standard that was something like 75 bps upstream and 1200 down. There were a few toggle switches on the front of the modem which had to be set correctly depending on how the modem on the other end was set up.
Dialing a long-distance number in the middle of the night, in my dark bedroom, and watching that BBS login screen appear from thousands of miles away was a huge thrill when I was a 15 year old in 1990.
I was just about to mention 1200/75. In the UK it was used for “Teletext” – I think the main system was Prestel. 1200 was the download speed and 75 was the upload. A bit like broadband really!