Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/09/08/things-i-miss-modem-handshake.html
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The fastest modem I owned was a 14.4 (jumped from there to ISDN), so the sound I am nostalgic for is simpler – less bonging and clanging and general weirdness.
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I once connected to a modem by voice at 120BPS and proceeded to slowly fill my terminal screen with repeating capital letter Ys. I ran out of breath and the modem disconnected.
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I loved the sound and because my 1200 baud modem was only used for calling local BBSes it was an aural reminder that I was connecting to other people.
It helped that I’d see many of those same people almost every Thursday at a Fuddrucker’s where we’d confuse the staff by using our handles instead of our names. I now work across the street from where that Fuddrucker’s was. I watched it become a TGI Friday’s and now it’s empty.
Well, we’ll always have the handshake.
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Up through the 14.4k days I could tell you what rate the modem was negotiating, and I’m sure I’m not the only one.
‘Whee ooooo ahhhhh squeeee’ - aha, full speed! Or nooo only 2400 (once 2400 was no longer AWESOME). Can’t do that any more though. I distinctly remember that sequence, but not the speed it goes with.
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The person who made that video didn’t have a Courrier Dual Standard on each end of the connection - US Robotics’ V.FC handshaking was very fast, it didn’t do that bouncing around.
That, and OMG, insert a S11=50 and a X6 in the initialization string to speed things up! When your local Pyroto Mountain is at war, you need to be ram-dialing that number as fast as possible (less so if ST:TNG was on).
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A healthy reminder of the days when I did tech-support for a local dialup internet company (only about 6 years ago).
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Yeah, back when ATT claimed that nobody should be allowed to hard wire to phone lines but them…
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I used one of these my sophomore year in college (1991) because the dorm room phone lines were digital, and I couldn’t use a plug-in modem. Also, the handsets had square mouth/earpieces, so I really had to shove them into the acoustic modem receptacles, and be very quiet so as not to disrupt the flow of text on my screen.
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Bweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-BEEEEEEEEEEEEE-- ccasdsadsfsdfhsdkfhasdhkkkkBONGBONGBONGBONGBONG
56.6k added that ‘bong bong bong’ thing at the end, although maybe it was 28.8…
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First thing I’d do after getting a new modem to connect reliably, was to tweak the initialization string to turn off the external speaker.
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ringtone!
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You get a phone call in a crowded area, and immediately everyone within a certain age range starts shuddering involuntarily…
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Damn, i miss monkey dust. The delicate flower that is the bbc these days (except their new surveillance powers for detecting licence fee avoiders) would never make something like that.
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Embedding’s been forbidden on that video. Maybe find an alternate?
That might work.
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It does. Thanks.
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Yeah, I was always amazed at tech-geek types coming to my house, and being amazed that I could could connect without all the bleeping and blooping.
Of course, they were usually the ones who prided themselves on never reading the manual. (-:
ATM0
FTW.
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