Wowwwwwww, A 33.6 Modem for Xmas :-D!!!!!! :'-)

[uniserver]

Remember BBSing?

Going from like going from 2400 to 14.4 WOW!

and then From 14.4 to 33.6 WOW! man those were some speed bumps!

56K was Eh,,, lots of people has some issues with that that Crud that was going on, Kflex/X2/v.90 stuff and some with the poor quality phone lines,

and the introduction of the 56k LT WINMODEM AHHHH, *Pukes* These things made tech support for ISP's quite difficult!, I Almost daily had melt downs back then.

Thank goodness for Fruitopia and cheap red label popov :-D

Ah the days of ISP technical support. (i don't miss it)

Oh, one thing, none of the mac user calls were bad.

 

[KC13]

LOL, I can remember turning blue trying to explain to a client that they HAD to get a hardware modem because their company network wouldn't support software modems. "But a modem is a modem, why does it matter?" AAAARRRRGGGHHHH!

 

[Unknown_K]

I remember getting my first PC, a Packard Bell 286/12 with built in modem (2400) and a free trial to prodigy (First GUI based dialup service pre AOL). BBS was more fun when I got a Zoom 14.4K downloading files from local BBS and playing Tradewars. The WWW on dialup was kind of a letdown, just too slow even on a 33.6K and not all ISP had reliable 56K lines.

 

[CelGen]

Vancouver still has the Bandmaster BBS.

 

[volvo242gt]

Re: AOL, wasn't it originally AppleLink?

Anyway, my Wowwwww came in 1995 when I got a SupraFAXModem 288 to replace the Zoom 2400 I'd been using previously. Much quicker, especially when I used the AOL over PPP modem script. Heck, even the 2400 baud modem was faster accessing AOL when I used that. I did discover that I couldn't get reliable 28.8Kbps connections, so I had to run it as a V.32bis 14.4 modem. That continued even after I upgraded the firmware to the 33.6 firmware.

I actually didn't have much in the way of issues running 56K on either my Mac or my father's old homebuilt PC. Both machines were running USRobotics Courier modems. One of which got updated to V.92. The other wasn't updateable, since it was an older revision. That said, I will never go back to dialup, unless I have no other option at the time.

-J

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

I think I've had every modem from the first 300baud Migent PinkPocketModem to a mobile 56.6 in PowerBook Gray.

I spent way too much time on the NYMUG BBS too . . . :I

 

[olePigeon]

My neighbor ran a large Apple II parate board. He had 8 floppy disks and 6 phone lines. 2 of the floppy drives ran the BBS software, the other 6 he loaded disks into for download (with a calendar for which days which software would be loaded on the site.) This was back in the day when you had to rip out the phone line and splice your own. Bell wouldn't sell you a phone line without one of their phones attached to it (we had a coupler for our modem.)

We must've had over 100 warez for our Apple II. Hehe. Those were the days. Watching for hours as it made a block copy.

We later got a Macintosh IIvx and a 2400 baud modem. I got in trouble on more than one occasion because all the good BBSes were in New York. Spent hours and hours on our local BBSes, though. Most I encountered were Amiga CNET BBS software. After we got real internet access, I could finally telnet into the various BBSes. That was fun. Then most people moved to Hotline and First Class.

I really miss it. Our local BBS would have meet ups.

 

[Unknown_K]

I had this BBS as a local call and was a member:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rusty_n_Edie's_BBS

It was also the first place I used to get to the WWW, they offered a portal and software when the WWW was just a curiosity.

 

[uniserver]

lol poor rusty and edie

On January 30, 1993, the system was raided by the FBI for software piracy after a several month investigation in cooperation with the Software Publishers Association (SPA).[2]

On March 11, 1993, a copyright infringement lawsuit was filed by Playboy Enterprises in response to 412 adult GIF images available for download, which had come from the pages of Playboy magazine, and had been scanned in. The case was dismissed on February 3, 1998 after a settlement was reached.[3]

 

[Unknown_K]

R n E was a huge source for warez, they kept new files in a special area for a couple weeks before moving them and deleting warez (their way to stay legal) but they also had a location for GIFs including the ones from playboy and got busted for that.

We also had a local $50 a year members only multi line Warez BBS that a few cops were members of. Once the WWW caught on and people started to trade online via FTP sites BBS died quickly.

 

[techknight]

I miss BBSes.

My first real PC was an IBM PS/2 Model 30 with an external 2400 baud modem. had Telex installed, and thats how I got onto BBSes. I remember going to the grocery store or officemax and a short BBS list was posted. Would sign online and download the latest BBS list, large enough that it almost ate up my time allotment getting it.

But all i used BBSes for were downloading stuff, mostly games for DOS. Picked up a few viruses along the way, one being the OneHalf.

I also remember that if the file was over a meg, I never downloaded it. because 1meg and over files would take 40 minutes to download. most time allotments didnt allow for that. My favorite local BBS at the time, was Forest Park BBS. it had just about all the shareware that was out there, including some warez, but best of all the allotment times were much larger than others.

Then of course, dad went to the local walmart and wiped them out of all thier shareware floppies, as they were liquidating them to make room for the CDROM stuff. 40cents a piece for each game and disks. that was fun too. most required 386+ but alot ran on the 286. I was happy. This was in the later half of 95, going into 96. I was just a small kid then. At the time the PS/2 was only a few years old, but new enough to be used in certain ways. We didnt get a brand new computer until about 97, which was a P200 CTX for 800 bucks.

Even though the PS/2 I had and the current technology of the time being early pentium were only a few years apart, technologically they were lightyears apart. Kinda like the same way smartphones are now. a year or so difference is a milestone difference in computing power. Man.. good times, where have they gone.