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From: Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action
Subject: Re: Dial-up modems (Re: FREE GAME: Spirit of the Mouse)
Date: Wed, 09 Oct 2024 17:02:09 -0400
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On Wed, 09 Oct 2024 13:06:08 -0400, Xocyll <Xocyll@gmx.com> wrote:

>Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> looked up from reading the
>entrails of the porn spammer to utter  "The Augury is good, the signs
>say:
>
>>On Tue, 08 Oct 2024 02:07:34 +0000, ant@zimage.comANT (Ant) wrote:
>>>Justisaur <justisaur@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>> We had an acoustic coupler for awhile.  I think I could type faster than 
>>>> it sent letters.
>>
>>>That's like 300 speed. ;)
>>
>>Depends on how fast you can type :-)
>>300 baud is probably amazingly fast to hunt-n-peck typists. 
>
>Don't be too sure, I hunt and peck at a quite fast rate (never learned
>to touch type and the allowable mistakes in touch typing, just plain DO
>NOT WORK when programming and it HAS TO BE RIGHT.
>
>I am however not one of those two-fingered hunt and peck types like you
>see in old police dramas, glacially typing up their reports on a
>typewriter or computer.
>
>>And in the 80s, before GUIs were common and everything -even a lot of
>>games - were character-based, 300 baud was probably usable, if a bit
>>slow. Although I can't imagine using anything that pokey for
>>downloading stuff; even 28,8kbps was tedious at those speeds (the
>>original Doom Shareware took me over an hour to get, back in the day).
>>Even looking at images was a chore; you'd queue up two or three and
>>that would be it for the night ;-)
>
>Never used 300 baud, but first modem was a Zoltrix 2400, soon upgraded
>to a USR 14k4.



As I mentioned in the parent thread, I started with a 1200baud modem
(I think) for the Apple II. But it didn't really get much use and I
consider the modem I got for my PC to be my real "first". It was a
bleeding edge 28,8kbps from Zoom Telephonics; so high-end that it was
released over a year before the v32 specifications for 28,8 speeds was
standardized. Of course, it was a long while before I could connect to
anyone else at that speed. And downloads were rapidly outpacing
data-rates, so even when I hooked up to another 28.8 modem, the
advantage was negligible.

Still, I stayed on dial-up for a long time (albeit with a faster 56K
modem)... well into the 2000s. The Internet was still _usable_ at
those speeds, and as for downloads? I'd just queue everything up and
let it run overnight. 

   [A major reason for my reluctance to upgrade was that few broadband
    providers included NNTP/Usenet access ;-)]

In fact, the biggest advantage to broadband _wasn't_ that it was so
much faster, but that I wouldn't be tying up the phone line for hours
on end. And it made it _so much_ easier to share internet access
across multiple PCs.

I won't deny that at least part of my objection to services like Steam
was that it was mighty inconvenient to be tied to the Internet when
you had dial-up ;-)

>
>I think I still have a ISA 56k modem around here somewhere, but of
>course no landline.

According to my spreadsheet-of-useless-computer-shit-I-own, I still
have five modems (two ISA, three PCI) stashed away in the closet,
including that beloved 28.8kbps Zoom telephonics. I think I halfway
hope that one day I'll get one of those devices that lets you setup up
a local phone network so I can connect all the retro-PCs together ;-)