Comments on: Surfing the Web at 300 Baud

By: JudgeDread

JudgeDread — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 14:39:33 +0000

I love old kit like this, I used to have a variety of old modems, all sadly gone in recent clear outs. My favourite hack with old kit was back in the eighties when a friend gave me a Creed 7B teletype (at the time printers were expensive. I connected the RS232 tx line of my trusty Nascom (CP/M based) to the teletype using the tx line to drive a tranister switching circuit with a 25-0-25 transformer. Had to program the uart to work at 50 baud and build a translation table to convert 8 bit ascii to 5 bit baudot (many ascii chars just translated to an asterix). The 7B eventually went to a radio ham pal for RTTY use. The Creed 7B dated from the early fifties and had a brass plate bearing the legend “Manufactured in the British Empire. Patented in all important countries.”, ha ha.

By: TheBear

TheBear — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 19:20:00 +0000

Started out with a 300 Baud Mastermodem. It was not only painfully slow, but it was completely uncontrollable. It would just type random characters on the screen. When I started work and had to go oncall I had once of those massive portable terminals with 1200 baud. that’s why it took hours to fix even the smallest problem :)

By: Brian

Brian — Sun, 31 May 2009 10:50:00 +0000

I used a 1200. “Best thing” was that I actually got off my butt a did stuff ( like wash the dishes or clean the sink, etc. ) while downloads were in progress sinse it made the time go quicker than just staring at the screen. Now I’m much more of a “web potato” with my fast connection and comfotable chair.

By: Helpless Little Kitten

Helpless Little Kitten — Fri, 29 May 2009 16:51:00 +0000

I remember 75 baud teletype communications in the 70’s…now that was slow.

By: Jordin

Jordin — Thu, 28 May 2009 16:25:00 +0000

Acoustic coupler modems were a dodge to get around the AT&T monopoly on hardware that actually connected electrically to the Bell network. (Yes, there was a time when *all* legal telephone equipment in the US was rented — not bought — from The Phone Company). I used (and still have) the only non-acoustic 300-baud modem of that era: a Bell 103, complete with rotary-dial handset.

Given how bulletproof Bell System hardware was, I have no doubt it would still work if I plugged it in.

(I used to have an automatic answering machine from the same era. It had a solenoid-operated paddle to mechanically lift the handset to “answer” the phone, since it couldn’t connect electrically to the network.)

By: Jesus

Jesus — Thu, 28 May 2009 15:59:00 +0000

haaa
300bauds should be enough for everyone…
I started using a US Robotics at 14.400b, which was enough for picking up girls on chats!!!!
(or what I supposed were girls)

By: Yakko Warner

Yakko Warner — Thu, 28 May 2009 15:03:00 +0000

I started on a Commodore 64 with a 300 baud cartridge, that could either dial with pulse dialing, or, with a special cable that connected the computer’s sound output to the modem, use touchtone dialing by playing the DTMF tones through the sound chip. (Since it just routed all sound to the modem, I could also call up my friend and play my SID music over the phone. Wow, that was cool.)

I had a terminal program where you could manually input the baud rate and change it on the fly. I found, when I was connected to a lot of BBSes, that I could set my 300 baud modem up to anywhere between 420 and 450 baud and maintain a pretty reliable connection, just getting an occasional garbage character here or there.

Ah, memories… :D

By: Spud Lite

Spud Lite — Thu, 28 May 2009 14:40:00 +0000

Some years before I encountered my first mainframe typesetting device and hardcopy terminal (which is when I got into technical writing), I worked for a life insurance company.

We would show up at a potential client’s place with a portable computer (thermal paper model) with the telephone lugs on the top. We would then place a long-distance call (at our expense) to a mainframe some 400 miles away.

We would then ask the mark (sorry, client) a series of questions, and input the responses. The computer would then cogitate for a bit, then transmit back a fully personalized insurance solution.

The client was then supposed to be all impressed by this technology, and sign an application for insurance immediately. This seldom happened.

The company folded after about a year. Each session lasted about two hours.

By: Simon

Simon — Thu, 28 May 2009 14:31:00 +0000

That actually makes me nostalgiac… I miss the community one got at BBSes… these were local people, living somewhere -near- you … and occasionally, we’d hold a GT (Get Together) — a bbq or something for all the users of a given BBS.

Ahh, well — showing my age. :)

By: Perry

Perry — Thu, 28 May 2009 13:45:00 +0000

I had a 300 baud modem back in 1983. I would download text files from Compuserve and read them as they were downloading. I then purchased a US Robotics 1200. That changed everything, I could not read that fast.

Back then we never would have guessed we would have broadband connections in the home. Dialup Bulletin Boards were the only ones with broadband T1 connections. And that speed was shared with several hundred connections.

Oh the good old days (NOT).