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300 baud modem from 1964

Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 2:50 pm
by trufun202
Now this is old school.

http://hackaday.com/2009/05/27/1964-300 ... s-the-web/

My first modem was 2400 baud, which wasn't fast enough to play Doom, so I had to upgrade to 9600!

Re: 300 baud modem from 1964

Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 4:58 pm
by dandymcgee
Wow.. I can't believe anyone ever used that hardware seriously. It'd be loads of fun to play with, but trying to accomplish any real task... mind boggling. Anyone who has been alive the past 50 years has seen the most remarkable technology changes known to man. It won't be long before my computer looks like a silly toy as well. :mrgreen:

Re: 300 baud modem from 1964

Posted: Fri May 29, 2009 1:46 pm
by MarauderIIC
trufun202 wrote:Now this is old school.

http://hackaday.com/2009/05/27/1964-300 ... s-the-web/

My first modem was 2400 baud, which wasn't fast enough to play Doom, so I had to upgrade to 9600!
I remember "baud" modems! And monochrome -> CGA -> EGA -> VGA -> SVGA, and BBS's, and 5 1/4" disks, and "A:" and "B:" (that's right, two disk drives -- you're lucky to have 1 nowadays), the popularization of the CD (gogo Myst)... I grew up with computers in the house; anyone else here ~22 years old remember this stuff? :P

Re: 300 baud modem from 1964

Posted: Fri May 29, 2009 4:05 pm
by trufun202
MarauderIIC wrote:
trufun202 wrote:Now this is old school.

http://hackaday.com/2009/05/27/1964-300 ... s-the-web/

My first modem was 2400 baud, which wasn't fast enough to play Doom, so I had to upgrade to 9600!
I remember "baud" modems! And monochrome -> CGA -> EGA -> VGA -> SVGA, and BBS's, and 5 1/4" disks, and "A:" and "B:" (that's right, two disk drives -- you're lucky to have 1 nowadays), the popularization of the CD (gogo Myst)... I grew up with computers in the house; anyone else here ~22 years old remember this stuff? :P
Hell yeah. My first computer was an 8086 with a CGA monitor, 64k RAM, and a 20 MB harddrive. :shock: On start-up, you could also press CTRL ALT + to enable TURBO MODE. What the hell that did, I have no clue...

I had Megaman for it too, which ran like ass, but it was different than the NES version. It only had 3 bosses: Sonicman (heh), Voltman, and Dynaman.

EDIT: Holy shit, I found a video of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDZ3hzwfAic

Gotta love the 4 colors. ;) And it didn't run anywhere near this fast on my computer.

Re: 300 baud modem from 1964

Posted: Sat May 30, 2009 4:57 am
by programmerinprogress
Darn, i'm 17, so the earliest computer i'm aware of in our house was either a 286/386 (pretty sure it was 386) with MS-DOS 6 and windows 3.1 (I still have all the disks), and even then I was about 3!

that modem is a living example of how fast technology has advanced in the recent past, it's absolutely mind-blowing.

EDIT: this is apparently the first video game I ever played, I remember the name "fury of the furries", but I can't really remember playing it that much (I can remember that I played it, but not the actual gameplay), but my dad said I took to it like a pro :lol:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fF_bSbA1hUw

Re: 300 baud modem from 1964

Posted: Sat May 30, 2009 11:53 am
by dandymcgee
programmerinprogress wrote: EDIT: this is apparently the first video game I ever played, I remember the name "fury of the furries", but I can't really remember playing it that much (I can remember that I played it, but not the actual gameplay), but my dad said I took to it like a pro :lol:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fF_bSbA1hUw
That looks really fun. :P

Jazz Jack Rabbit is the first game I remember playing, and I'm 17 as well:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIehvRIxKXw

Remind you of anything? It looks stunningly similar to Sonic The Hedgehog which is probably why I've always loved Sonic so much.

Re: 300 baud modem from 1964

Posted: Sat May 30, 2009 1:08 pm
by Kros
MarauderIIC wrote:I remember "baud" modems! And monochrome -> CGA -> EGA -> VGA -> SVGA, and BBS's, and 5 1/4" disks, and "A:" and "B:" (that's right, two disk drives -- you're lucky to have 1 nowadays), the popularization of the CD (gogo Myst)... I grew up with computers in the house; anyone else here ~22 years old remember this stuff? :P
19, and I remember a few of those. 5 1/4", the true floppy. :)

Re: 300 baud modem from 1964

Posted: Sun May 31, 2009 6:48 am
by programmerinprogress
dandymcgee wrote:
programmerinprogress wrote: Jazz Jack Rabbit is the first game I remember playing, and I'm 17 as well:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIehvRIxKXw
Remind you of anything? It looks stunningly similar to Sonic The Hedgehog which is probably why I've always loved Sonic so much.
Everything about that game says the 90's, and that's only a good thing, never tried it myself, but you can't beat a good DOS game playing on actual DOS, and not some cheap emulation...

Re: 300 baud modem from 1964

Posted: Mon Jun 01, 2009 1:13 pm
by MarauderIIC
trufun202 wrote:Hell yeah. My first computer was an 8086 with a CGA monitor, 64k RAM, and a 20 MB harddrive. :shock: On start-up, you could also press CTRL ALT + to enable TURBO MODE. What the hell that did, I have no clue...
We had a computer at one point that had an external switch for turbo mode that actually sped up the computer. It made some of the older games (relative to that time period) playable.

Re: 300 baud modem from 1964

Posted: Mon Aug 24, 2009 5:59 am
by Spikey
I always thought the "Turbo" button was mislabeled, it's more like the "Slow-down" button, as the turbo was on by default or usually always on... But I suppose Turbo was initially an external switch so that would make sense.

My parents bought our first computer in 1990 or '91. Some kind of Packard Bell, I thought it was pretty mind blowing. 16 bit, Windows 3.1, could handle 640x480 and 256 colors, had both floppy drives, I'd play Wolfenstein, Bard's Tale, Duke Nukem, and many others. Too bad we still don't have it :( It didn't have a sound card though... but that's ok, those motherboard pc speakers were still used a alot at the time. I have no idea if it had a modem or not. Wasn't until around 1999 that we got our first modem, and it was a 56K dialup that connected at 24K or so....

Lately, for the past week I have been researching computer history, mostly 70's and 80's. Reading about the Altair 8800, Wozniak and Apple. Gates and Microsoft. etc... I feel very lucky to be alive in these times, PC's have been around for like only 30 years, many the great contributors are still alive and are still in business or just retired, I feel privileged to be part of the next 30 years or whatever. :worship:

Re: 300 baud modem from 1964

Posted: Mon Aug 24, 2009 4:51 pm
by Falco Girgis
My very first computer was a Pentium 386 running Windows 3.1. It was about as big as two of today's largest computers combined, and I played Wolfenstein 3D, and some oooold ass D&D on it. I couldn't dream of playing Doom 95 until my second computer--a 486 laptop!

I remember when I was a kid, my dad and I played Doom 95 multiplayer with my 486 laptop and his Pentium I. Our LAN used a gigantic ass printer cable, and was so fucking slow that it took a considerable amount of time to transfer Doom to another computer to install.

This is a very awesome video. I want one of those.

Re: 300 baud modem from 1964

Posted: Tue Aug 25, 2009 11:21 am
by sparda
I might be 22 years old, but I have no ideas what you guys are babbling about! My first computer was a Pentium 2, running windows 95 (I was ~15). Specifically, it was some Compaq(tm) abomination of a computer that I still re-experience in my most dreadfully horrifying nightmares. Before that I basically only owned consoles, so I do somewhat envy you "baud" wielding dinosaurs (I'm looking at you Trufun/Mar).

By the way, awesome vid Trufun. I'll be visiting hackaday.com regularly from now on :)

Re: 300 baud modem from 1964

Posted: Mon Dec 21, 2009 1:46 am
by ebastancy
How do I block high frequency broadband signals from my modem? My modem with my broadband internet emits a very high frequency which is very disturbing to my girlfriend who is sensitive to high frequencies since she suffered a brain injury several years ago.
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Re: 300 baud modem from 1964

Posted: Mon Dec 21, 2009 7:34 am
by Big Grizzle
The first computer in our house was one of these bad boys!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX_Spectrum

My very own first computer was one of these however!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad_464

Yes I know. I am old!