300 baud modems and slower

Thrash · 14 Jan 2011 at 12:27

My first access to the big bad world was with an acoustic coupler. After that came a 1200/75 baud modem to access Prestel. Happy days.

Cosimo · 14 Jan 2011 at 12:56

Thrash said:
My first access to the big bad world was with an acoustic coupler. After that came a 1200/75 baud modem to access Prestel. Happy days.

I wonder how many people have seen one of these:

The leading edge of IT communications.

Sp00n · 14 Jan 2011 at 12:58

I thought they were proprietary for the US market because of Bell?

Never seen one in this country.

Thrash · 14 Jan 2011 at 13:35

I'm not sure where I got mine from but it was from the UK.

Sp00n · 14 Jan 2011 at 13:39

Ah fair enough, first time I saw one was in Hackers

edinboy · 14 Jan 2011 at 23:41

Had one for the C64 years ago, BBS

Tute · 14 Jan 2011 at 23:44

I started at 14.4K, on Compuserve.

Those were the days, if you tried to load an image everything just stopped.

Amp34 · 14 Jan 2011 at 23:45

gettothechopper said:
also what happened to US robotics? they used to be massive

They're making robots now...

(iRobot...)

Stolly · 15 Jan 2011 at 00:27

Sp00n said:
I thought they were proprietary for the US market because of Bell?

Never seen one in this country.

I saw one in use at my junior school around 1984.

Angilion · 15 Jan 2011 at 01:34

When I first went online I had a choice of two modes. 300/300 or 1200/75. I also had a choice of two colours...use a VT100 terminal that displayed green text or use a VT100 terminal that displayed amber text

A while later, I got 9600 at home and that was so incredibly fast. I can remember how awesome it was to be able to download a picture in as little as 10 seconds. An actual picture, not ASCII art.

Maybe that's why I'm still quite happy with the ~5,000,000 I've been getting for the last few years.

Rameses · 15 Jan 2011 at 01:55

Gosh here I was thinking 28.8k and 33.6k were the norm way back, having watched that 1st video its amazing how techno starts out, and even cooler when you can still use it (to a degree

).

Thank god for Virgin Media, I'd be lost without my 50Mb connection.

DRZ · 15 Jan 2011 at 02:38

The earliest I remember was a 14.4k modem... which was a backup line to our leased line

WoZZeR · 15 Jan 2011 at 07:21

The slowest modem I had was a 28800 Sportster, a storm took it out and US Robotics sent me another one, which was good news at the time as they were very expensive.

Had to slow it to 9600 I think to play Doom on it.....

Thrash · 15 Jan 2011 at 09:16

If I remember rightly, at the time the general consensus was that 28.8kbs was the fastest transmission rate you could achieve over a phone line, then they really pushed the envelope with 33.6kbs. Eventually I got isdn and signed up to the isp Red Hot Ant so I didn't have to watch my call charges. Before that every minute online cost money.

Cosimo · 15 Jan 2011 at 09:31

Those lovely sounds:

Then those horrible sounds, "how long are you going to be on the phone".