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Collection of V.90/V.92 modem sounds (2016)

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Re: Collection of V.90/V.92 modem sounds (2016)

#23

Post by thedougd »

Remember the nightmare of soft modems? They were a combined audio and modem sharing the same DSP chipset. They were terrible and shipped with a lot of PCs. I think they finally worked out the kinks when cable modems and DSL became an option.

There were also a neat series of adapters starting in the late 90s that were combined modems with telephone line loop nics. All the NICs plugged into the same telephone line would see each other on the network. Windows had an option to share Internet connection and even autoconnect a modem when another PC needed an internet connection.

Re: Collection of V.90/V.92 modem sounds (2016)

#24

Post by motohagiography »

chrissnell wrote: post #20
motohagiography wrote: post #13

One of my first tech jobs as a teenager in high school involved a lot of resetting ATI modems connected to portmasters as they oveheated at an isp in the mid 90s. Recently used a related one as a sample in a song for a friend about that era. Three sounds you won't hear today that defined the early 90s for us, a zippo lighter, an x.25 dialup number, and a 1200baud modem handshake (though may have used 300 for the samp…

OMG. Livingston Portmasters. Now there's a name I haven't heard in a long, long time. - fellow ISP modem lackey (but USR Couriers, not shit ATI, thank God)

Mr. Fancy Pants USR Courier over here! One isp I worked at took the couriers out of their cases and put the boards in custom racks with fans blowing over them and added custom power supplies. Those ATI things were a fire hazard. Violating warranties on USR was much more stable. This was before anyone could afford Ascend(hah!) gear with PRI cards. I was the least compentent sort of tag along to some really great technical minds at the time, but in a sense I think that just made me the luckiest. Racks and racks of blinkenlights in underground bunkers, it was unbelievable to see it all at the time. :)

Re: Collection of V.90/V.92 modem sounds (2016)

#25

Post by logbiscuitswave »

xattt wrote: post #4

Did anyone that didn’t live inside the CO ever actually connect at 56k, or was this only the stuff of legends? Edit: My personal max downlink record was 48 kbps, despite being subscribed to 56k service. This is why I ask. This also brings back memories of hovering the mouse cursor over the dial-up icon in the system tray in Windows to see your line speed.

The only time I was ever able to connect with anything close to a 56k connection was when my phone lines were upgraded to support ISDN and I’d have to make an old-school modem to modem call.

Re: Collection of V.90/V.92 modem sounds (2016)

#27

Post by Natsu »

mmh0000 wrote: post #21

Use the power of Linux and minimodem to hear modem sounds... And transmit a file — wirelessly! The future is now! Sender: $ cat /etc/passwd | minimodem --tx 300 Receiver: $ minimodem --rx 300

LOL it's amazing that we've invented all this stuff and yet never just let our computers talk to each other without a wifi card or a phone or whatever else. We just needed a speaker and a microphone the whole time.

How long before someone makes a phone app to just let two phones talk to each other to transmit a file? No, I don't care about your network, just let me access the speaker & microphone and beep at each other a little bit...

Re: Collection of V.90/V.92 modem sounds (2016)

#28

Post by ck2 »

hirundo wrote: post #3

In college I had a 300 baud connection to a school PDP-11, with a phone handset coupler. The modem dropped the connection constantly so the handshake connect was constant. And those sounds were increasingly annoying. You whippersnappers with your always on internet have no idea how tough it was for us brave pioneers.

First computer exposure for me was phone coupler 300-baud modem on a paper terminal to compuserve billed by the hour (was it minute? or hour? I think rounded to hour)

Eventually got a tiny green-screen terminal and discovered I could record the modem sessions on a tape player and play them back offline sometimes!

When TRS-80 came out and then 1200baud modems I thought the future was amazing.

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