FYI - 2600 Hz is a common handshake tone used in telco. Hence why “2600” is referenced. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2600_hertz
I've wondered if the Atari 2600 was named such in reference to that, and online searches seem to confirm that it was.
2600.network Dialup Service
41–50 of 119 posts
Re: 2600.network Dialup Service
#42So a decade and a half ago there used to be the Google Search Appliance (no idea if it still exists). It was essentially a black (actually yellow) box with some Google magic inside that let you have Google search on premises and for local documents you didn’t want leaving your data center back when people still had their own data centers.
One problem with this premise was that when the appliance was not working how it was supposed to, you couldn’t just log into it to fix it because the Google magic was secret. You needed one of their engineers to access it and figure out what’s wrong, but the wrinkle was that every appliance was installed in a different environment and almost certainly behind a firewall that was not easy to open for this process. So to bypass it Google did a very clever thing and added a dial up modem to the appliance. That way you could just go down to the rack, physically connect it to a phone line, and put it into a diagnostic mode where it would dial out to Google to start the remote session. No firewall rules, no unintentional leakage, no accidental logins from who knows where.
Re: 2600.network Dialup Service
#43FYI - 2600 Hz is a common handshake tone used in telco. Hence why “2600” is referenced. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2600_hertz
> 2600 Hz is a common handshake tone used in telco
WAS not IS. It was phased out sometime in the 80s.
Re: 2600.network Dialup Service
#44So a decade and a half ago there used to be the Google Search Appliance (no idea if it still exists). It was essentially a black (actually yellow) box with some Google magic inside that let you have Google search on premises and for local documents you didn’t want leaving your data center back when people still had their own data centers. One problem with this premise was that when the appliance was not working how i…
>No firewall rules, no unintentional leakage, no accidental logins
No guarantee that the box won't poke for ways to break out either, or was there a pinky promise? I guess it was somewhat easy to disguise it, the search box is supposed to constantly poke around and index things, right?
Re: 2600.network Dialup Service
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
Could you theoretically use an analog modem (or worst case an acoustic coupler) over IMS (VoLTE etc., which should all have at least some QoS), or are the jitter rates and codecs too bad for that (like they often are for Fax over VoIP on fixed lines)? I wonder if some of the networks that are continuing to offer GSM (usually via some core network emulations, as far as I understand, to make it more compatible with mod…
Theoretically, maybe. If you got a good 'HD voice' (higher bitrate EVS codec) call, it's possible you could negotiate and send a slower fax signal. No way on a full-rate or half-rate GSM codec or amr-nb though, just doesn't have the bandwidth, chops too much. Even back in the early 2000's when I was using free nights and weekends with my T68i to make calls to a free dialup provider in new england (9600baud yea), my c…
Ive gotten 2400 and occasionally 9600 over audio voip. Ymmv.
Re: 2600.network Dialup Service
#46This predates me by at least a decade. How do you use the “BBS”? So once you dial in, it uses IVR to read and write messages? Sounds painful to me once you have more than a dozen active users
Typically BBS's were single user systems, although many multiuser systems existed too.
Re: 2600.network Dialup Service
#47So how do I realistically access this with a modern laptop and zero ancient modems left to my name.
You could possibly use tethering to your mobile phone in some way, although I'm unsure, I'm just throwing an idea out there.
Cellular compression will not play nicely with analog modems. (Or any lossy compression, really - this is why you have to use lossless G.711 to have any hope of this working on VoIP.)
Back in the days of 2G cellular, GSM had an option to have your cell phone digitally connect to an analog modem in the cell tower, and have the tower place an analog modem call on your behalf. (Very similar to how T.38 works for faxes in the VoIP world.) You'd then connect your cell phone to your laptop over RS-232, IrDA, or Bluetooth. It was called CSD ("circuit-switched data), and used 1x voice channel for 9600 bps, or 4x voice channels for 56 kbps. Needless to say your cell carrier charged quite a bit for using this capability.
I don't know if there's any cell carriers left that still offer CSD calls.
Re: 2600.network Dialup Service
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
Theoretically, maybe. If you got a good 'HD voice' (higher bitrate EVS codec) call, it's possible you could negotiate and send a slower fax signal. No way on a full-rate or half-rate GSM codec or amr-nb though, just doesn't have the bandwidth, chops too much. Even back in the early 2000's when I was using free nights and weekends with my T68i to make calls to a free dialup provider in new england (9600baud yea), my c…
I thought VoIP codecs all chopped the frequencies that seems like it would be very detrimental to a data signal. Is the "HD" quality high enough for that, or was the analog data signal not as full frequency as I'm thinking they would be?
Most internet-based VoIP services (read: full telephone providers, not just chat providers) use the same exact G.711 codecs used in the digital portions of traditional telephone lines for normal calls.
In theory you can run anything over this that could run over a long distance PSTN link.
In practice most modem technologies do not handle jitter and packet loss well at all, and quirks which a human would not even notice will trip up a data call. It still works, I have clients running credit card machines on VoIP lines all day, but the longer the call and the higher the bandwidth the more likely something is to go wrong. A short 9600bps data exchange from a card machine is a lot easier than a 30 page 33.6k fax which is a lot easier than a 56k modem on a PC.
There's a special method called T.38 that allows VoIP providers with compatible endpoints to convert digital fax calls back to a data stream instead of audio which makes it a lot more tolerant of delay and jitter as well as slightly more tolerant of loss. Something similar could hypothetically be done for data modems but I haven't seen it.
Re: 2600.network Dialup Service
#49So a decade and a half ago there used to be the Google Search Appliance (no idea if it still exists). It was essentially a black (actually yellow) box with some Google magic inside that let you have Google search on premises and for local documents you didn’t want leaving your data center back when people still had their own data centers. One problem with this premise was that when the appliance was not working how i…
>No firewall rules, no unintentional leakage, no accidental logins No guarantee that the box won't poke for ways to break out either, or was there a pinky promise? I guess it was somewhat easy to disguise it, the search box is supposed to constantly poke around and index things, right?
My understanding of what the parent wrote is the phone line would be disconnected in the normal case - can't break out if it's physically disconnected.
Re: 2600.network Dialup Service
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
Could you theoretically use an analog modem (or worst case an acoustic coupler) over IMS (VoLTE etc., which should all have at least some QoS), or are the jitter rates and codecs too bad for that (like they often are for Fax over VoIP on fixed lines)? I wonder if some of the networks that are continuing to offer GSM (usually via some core network emulations, as far as I understand, to make it more compatible with mod…
Theoretically, maybe. If you got a good 'HD voice' (higher bitrate EVS codec) call, it's possible you could negotiate and send a slower fax signal. No way on a full-rate or half-rate GSM codec or amr-nb though, just doesn't have the bandwidth, chops too much. Even back in the early 2000's when I was using free nights and weekends with my T68i to make calls to a free dialup provider in new england (9600baud yea), my c…
So I looked into it (too late for me to edit), if you have a government account it might be possible to add CSDOPTION to your account for $9.99/mo. It's highly unlikely though, I found the old and current price schedules and this was removed from it.
Old gov contract expired 2022: https://www.gsaadvantage.gov/ref_text/GS35F0503M/0VX37Z.3RNG... (search for CSD, it's there)
New gov contract in effect (no CSD): https://www.gsaadvantage.gov/ref_text/47QTCA22D008N/0YTCAI.3...
EDIT: I tried to CSD dialup using my K850i which can handle my new and older SIM cards, no good. Simple Choice plans are way too new for this (the old plan I had in the early-mid 2000's was the Get More one)