

1964 Modem Reaches Out And Touches The Internet - skorks
http://www.retrothing.com/2009/05/1964-modem-reaches-out-and-touches-the-internet.html

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jodrellblank
I wish the idea of acoustic couplers still existed and was nicely integrated
with things. Imagine the ease of technical support:

Customer: Hello? I can't open this Excel file

Me: OK, wave your phone near your computer for me

{remote control established}

No IE slowness, no reading URLs and passwords back and forth, no "did you
notice the information bar" or plugin prompts or download prompts or email
invitations stuck in spam filters... even if the two just communicated long
enough to exchange a URL and key and then connected over the internet.

Although it would be better if it could be good enough to see the BIOS, etc.

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TeHCrAzY
At 300 baud, you might be better off driving over.

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eru
With a station wagon full of tapes?

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wanderr
We actually got to put that in practice when we moved our servers to a new
data center, although we used a uhaul. ~60tb in 1.5 hrs.

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boredguy8
The bandwidth is awesome. It's the latency that kills you.

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esonica
I would be wary about broadcasting the IP address, username and a filmed
typing of the password to a tech community.

It would take very little work to determine the password from watching that
video a few times.

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blasdel
I remember that someone did that when the video was posted last year, and it
was an easter egg..

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esonica
I have been searching and can't find any info about this? Got any more
details/link?

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mgrouchy
This is the most awesome thing I have seen in a long time.

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cvg
Agreed. I love the craftsmanship. Who makes hardware that can last more than
45 years?

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blhack
My current model M is going to turn 23 in April...I suspect that it will live
to see 45.

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yardie
I love my Model M but I think this is the last go for it. It already has a
DIN-PS2 adapter and now manufacturers are starting to drop the PS2 port
(Dell). I feel like I get less enjoyment out of it each passing day. I have to
switch to a quieter keyboard at night because of the tapping noise. And with
more stuff showing up on my desk, more and larger displays, I'm running out of
space.

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blhack
These fine folks:

[http://www.clickykeyboards.com/index.cfm/fa/categories.main/...](http://www.clickykeyboards.com/index.cfm/fa/categories.main/parentcat/11298)

Sell what you need. The regular passive USB/PS2 adapters that you can get at
best buy won't work.

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joshsharp
This is a duplicate post from a while ago, but fascinating all the same.

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jacquesm
What's especially impressive is that the electrolytic capacitors in it haven't
failed after all these years.

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jordanb
I wish he had opened it up and shown the insides. I bet it's some fantastic
assemblage of point-to-point circuitry.

They may have avoided having to use electrolytic capacitors. Or they might
have used especially high-quality ones given that it was a specialized (and
probably very expensive) piece of equipment.

I would have expected such a device from 1964 to have at least a few tubs in
it, but the fact that it didn't require any 'warm up' time after he switched
it on suggests that that's not the case.

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jff
Transistor devices had been around for years at that point; we were already
making transistor computers.

Also, electrolytic caps are pretty easy to replace--they're big, clearly
labelled, and it's not like the functionality has changed (a 100 uF capacitor
is still a 100 uF capacitor).

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ra
It makes me feel old that 300 baud modems were around 45 years ago.

