I'm trying to remember "the" big FTP site back then. There was one in particular that was the "go to" site for, well, pretty much everything. ftp.cdrom.com, metalab.unc.edu, sunsite.something, ...
simtel?
Thanks for Trumpet Winsock
111–120 of 123 posts
Re: Thanks for Trumpet Winsock
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
> those tones http://evilrouters.net/56k.mp3 (MP3) It's my ring tone. I love the weird looks on people's faces when I'm in a meeting and my phone rings -- especially the "older" crowd (some of the "youngsters" don't recognize the sound).
Did you know each manufacturer had a unique sound for their v90 handshake? This one sounds like a Lucent WinModem. (Based on listening to the sounds here[1]. Yay for RealAudio!) The USR/3Com modems were two "bongs" (four if the higher speed failed). But I was always fond of the Rockwell sweep[2]. Of course, required reading is HN favorite Oona Räisänen's excellent analysis of a modem handshake. [1] http://modemsite.c…
The Rockwell sweep always made me think of Neo leaving the Matrix for the real world.
Re: Thanks for Trumpet Winsock
#113> Do you remember connecting to the Internet in 1994 or 1995? In 1993 I was already using Linux, with an actual TCP/IP stack, not some bolted-on thing. In 1994 I was doing contract work on Linux already. One of the jobs was for these guys, still chugging along: http://www.infomine.com/ They employed a group of full-time people who continuously gathered new information about mining prospecting going on around the worl…
I was playing with Linux (Slackware) in 94, but was mainly using Trumpet on WfWg 3.11 until I discovered Windows NT. It had a full TCP/IP stack, which was rumored to have been stolen from BSD, IIRC. After NT got the Windows 95 facelift rev, it became a no-brainer replacement for Windows 3.x/95. It even ran most games! I also bought a dual P100 in 95, which is what made me post. I, too, found that they were about 30% faster than single-CPU boxes. I soon ran Linux for everything except games and CAD/FEA.
Re: Thanks for Trumpet Winsock
#114Re: Thanks for Trumpet Winsock
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
> those tones http://evilrouters.net/56k.mp3 (MP3) It's my ring tone. I love the weird looks on people's faces when I'm in a meeting and my phone rings -- especially the "older" crowd (some of the "youngsters" don't recognize the sound).
Did you know each manufacturer had a unique sound for their v90 handshake? This one sounds like a Lucent WinModem. (Based on listening to the sounds here[1]. Yay for RealAudio!) The USR/3Com modems were two "bongs" (four if the higher speed failed). But I was always fond of the Rockwell sweep[2]. Of course, required reading is HN favorite Oona Räisänen's excellent analysis of a modem handshake. [1] http://modemsite.c…
Absolutely! I had a USRobotics 16.8k Dual-Standard modem that I bought in 1992 under the discounted Sysop program and that thing made the coolest noises of any modem I ever owned.
Re: Thanks for Trumpet Winsock
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did you know each manufacturer had a unique sound for their v90 handshake? This one sounds like a Lucent WinModem. (Based on listening to the sounds here[1]. Yay for RealAudio!) The USR/3Com modems were two "bongs" (four if the higher speed failed). But I was always fond of the Rockwell sweep[2]. Of course, required reading is HN favorite Oona Räisänen's excellent analysis of a modem handshake. [1] http://modemsite.c…
I used to listen for the noise to determine if a connection was successful. I would disconnect promptly if it sounded bad. One day I think south Florida got a new area code or something...954 and I was still calling the 305 number for the BBS in Mismi (or something I was maybe 10 at the time, things are kinda fuzzy). At the end of the month found it my parents got charged $.25 per call because it's now considered lon…
We were just talking about this a couple days ago at work! If you listened very carefully to the handshake, you could tell what the quality connection you had. After awhile, you could even guess the final baud from the sound of the handshake, and if it was bad, you'd try reconnecting a few times to see if you could get a better connection.
Re: Thanks for Trumpet Winsock
#117I have fond memories of the transition from local BBSes (my parents were annoyed enough by my constant phoning of the local BBS to download commander keen and the like), to IP connectivity via Trumpet. The reach of the internet (esp IRC!) was mind-blowing for someone living in a relatively isolated community in Alaska at the time. I feel like I don't fully appreciate the gradual transition from dial-up and Trumpet to…
Heh. "local" -- ~1988 I was calling into BBSs in San Jose from Tahoe... the phone bill got to $926! I was grounded for a month. We wanted to play trade wars and the pit. Super fun. I also used to call up 411 (information, where you would call 411 and say "do you have a number for John Smith in lake tahoe ca?") -- and I would chat up the 411 operators for as long as possible - the contest being to see how long we coul…
In 1994 I called a remote system in Washington state (we were living in Tennessee) because I wanted to download a patch for Outpost [0] that added some of the enhancements that were supposed to be in the game from the beginning. I couldn't find it anywhere on the Internet at the time, but if you called this specific BBS in Washington, you could download it.
It took several hours to download. The total bill for that was like $50 or something. I had no idea it was going to be that much. I got in so much trouble for that.
Re: Thanks for Trumpet Winsock
#118In 94 I got a job (my first in London) at a small company that made software with and for SGI workstations, and despite all this computational power they still used a 386 with Trumpet on Windows for their only internet connection. It would dial up a few times a day to exchange email using Demon's inbound SMTP (tenner-a-month account!), or one could laboriously route through it if one really needed something specific.…
In '95, I was running a dual Pentium machine for doing FEA. With a $2,500 video card (I can't remember the make), it had 3x the bang-for-buck as a mid-range Unix workstation. (We upgraded to Pentium Pro's ASAP.) Another guy in a cubicle next to mine had the biggest, baddest workstation in the company: an RS10K that cost $80K.
This was in our pre-T1 days. Everyone was getting phone lines. I was using dual modems in my Windows NT machine. He was getting hooked up to a small ISP. The ISP's tech came in to configure his modem. It was taking awhile, so, as he struggled, I gave them both a hard time about how connecting my Windows NT machine to my ISP -- even with both modems -- took 15 minutes. He told me how Unix was "awesome" and that there were over 2000 options to configure. After 4 hours, he gave up and went back to the ISP to try from that end.
A week later, the engineer with the RS still had no internet connection. After another week, his ISP got him online... and immediately crashed his machine. They discovered a firmware bug in the SGI that caused the kernel to panic every time the modem connected. They got a patch, and he FINALLY got online to get his email.
And then we got a T1. But since this connection was SO hard-won, he kept his modem and his private domain. And then, soon after everyone started getting connected to ethernet and the T1, no one could get ANYWHERE. Lo and behold, the ISP tech had configured the engineer's modem connection to advertise itself as a route, and, since that hop was closer than getting 3 buildings away, every computer in my office started using it. It took several days to sort out.
I noted, for the record, that this option for a modem connection was a prominent and easy-to-avoid checkbox on NT.
It wasn't long before this other engineer left, and we were all glad for it. He was the biggest, narcissistic, pompous douchebag I've ever met, even to this day. And I soon began to prefer Linux to NT wherever I could get away with it. I don't know where I was going with all of this, but SGI and early internet days made me remember this anecdote.
Re: Thanks for Trumpet Winsock
#119> Do you remember connecting to the Internet in 1994 or 1995? In 1993 I was already using Linux, with an actual TCP/IP stack, not some bolted-on thing. In 1994 I was doing contract work on Linux already. One of the jobs was for these guys, still chugging along: http://www.infomine.com/ They employed a group of full-time people who continuously gathered new information about mining prospecting going on around the worl…
I was playing with Linux (Slackware) in 94, but was mainly using Trumpet on WfWg 3.11 until I discovered Windows NT. It had a full TCP/IP stack, which was rumored to have been stolen from BSD, IIRC. After NT got the Windows 95 facelift rev, it became a no-brainer replacement for Windows 3.x/95. It even ran most games! I also bought a dual P100 in 95, which is what made me post. I, too, found that they were about 30%…
Well, considering the BSD network stack was BSD licensed, MS didn't really 'steal' it (http://www.kuro5hin.org/?op=displaystory;sid=2001/6/19/05641...)
Re: Thanks for Trumpet Winsock
#120> Do you remember connecting to the Internet in 1994 or 1995? In 1993 I was already using Linux, with an actual TCP/IP stack, not some bolted-on thing. In 1994 I was doing contract work on Linux already. One of the jobs was for these guys, still chugging along: http://www.infomine.com/ They employed a group of full-time people who continuously gathered new information about mining prospecting going on around the worl…
I was still in high school. I do remember using Trumpet, but I also remember connecting to dial up using Slackware 3.6 and having one of those crappy internal WinModems that had drivers which depended on offloading processing to the cpu. I remember finding kernel modules someone had kludged together that allowed you to use a PCI winmodem in Linux. It was pretty cool getting Netscape Navigator running on Slackware over dial up.
By the time I started University, I had a 667Mhz P3 that used the BeOS boot loader to quad boot Win98, 2000, Linux and BeOS.