[phreakmonkey] got his hands on a great piece of old tech. It’s a 1964 Livermore Data Systems Model A Acoustic Coupler Modem. He recieved it in 1989 and recently decided to see if it would actually work. It took some digging to find a proper D25 adapter and even then the original serial adapter wasn’t working because the oscillator depends on the serial voltage. He dials in and connects at 300baud. Then logs into a remote system and fires up lynx to load Wikipedia.The HiR team loves Old School tech, but where do I even begin with this? The guy found a serial modem (and had to SCROUNGE for an industry-standard serial cable?) and used it exactly as it was designed to be used without any modifications. Where's the hackery here? Why is this even newsworthy?
In the 1980s, I cut my teeth on a similar modem albeit quite a bit newer than 1964. When dial-up Internet became accessible here in Kansas City, I would fire up a GRAPHICAL DOS-Based web-browser (Minuet, if you care) and connect via SLIP or PPP.
I suppose since I'm getting older, it's only going to get worse from here. I'll recall old tech with a certain fondness, and I'll get curmudgeonly whenever it becomes 'news' that someone found out how to use the old hardware as it was designed. Stored properly, well-built electronics don't rot or rust. These relics should simply "just work" and the fact that some standards from the 1960s still exist today should surprise no one. The world has built a vast technology canon of these standards. Some of the very standards we take for granted now are a result of engineering that happened hundreds and hundreds of years ago.
Now get off my lawn, you darn kids!
/me shakes his fist at whippersnappers!
I actually thought this was pretty cool for a few reasons:
ReplyDeleteThat a modem from 1964 had a DB25 interface with all the pins in the "right" place. I would have expected something goofy/proprietary there.
Also cool that the system he was dialing into still supported 300 baud using the same signalling as the 1964 modem. This is also something I would have imagined being done in different/proprietary ways in that era.
The discussion of how it worked was neat too: solid analog tone being interrupted to represent bits, meaning no digital hardware at all in the modem.
I guess there's no hackery here, but it is neat tech, and a cool demo.
I agree, the video is a serious drool-fest that brings a tear to the eye. I just think I'd have liked to see something more done with it.
ReplyDeleteBelieve it or not, the D-Sub connector specification was made in the 50s, so its presence doesn't astound me here as much as you'd think, given the strange proprietary plugs and awkward card-edge contraptions that you and I probably got to deal with in our younger years.