This is a tale from ancient times, when I had to push data uphill both ways in the snow.
When I first got online I was using a Commodore SX-64 with a 300 baud HES II modem. By today's standards that's REALLY slow but it seemed a miracle at the time. An ordinary guy like me could not only have his own computer, but could connect it to others and communicate with people.
Another time I'll talk about how slow 300 baud is compared to the speeds of DSL and cable modems. The HES II was a manual dial modem, so today I want to describe the process of getting connected.
1. Set your telephone and modem side by side. This will be important later when speed is essential.
2. Boot the computer and load your terminal program.
3a. If your terminal program recognizes that manual dial modems exist, set it for manual dial, then select the system you are connecting to from the menu. The number to dial will display on your screen.
3b. If your terminal program removed the manual dial feature because you only have 64k of memory and the space was needed for other features then pick the system you want from the dialing directory. If you're using a program like this have the phone already in your hand as the program will expect you to dial as fast as it does.
4. Dial the access number. Yes, I mean "dial." With a rotary phone.
4a. Get a busy signal. If your terminal program supports manual dial, hang up and dial again. Repeat as needed till you get a modem tone, or till you're foaming at the mouth.
4b. Get a busy signal. If your terminal program doesn't support manual dial, watch the time out message appear on your screen. Hang up, go back to the dialing directory, reselect the system to connect to. Dial the phone number again. Repeat as needed till you get a modem tone, or till you're foaming at the mouth.
4c. Give up on calling that system for now and try another. Go back to step 3.
5. If you don't get a busy signal (or the voice of someone you woke at 3 am because you misdialed) then after the phone rings a few times you hear a modem tone.
6. REALLY fast reach behind the phone and unplug the cord. Plug the phone cord into the back of the modem.
7. Go to the front of the modem and flip the switch to the "Off Hook" position. (This switch tells the modem whether to be connected or not. It's a subject for another time when we discuss the joys of trying to get a friend to dial into your computer.)
8. Press the RETURN key.
If you've done everything fast enough you are now connected to the system you were trying to reach. (You can put down the phone, it's not connected to anything.)
If not:
9. Hang up the phone.
10. Flip the switch on the front of the modem to "On Hook."
11. Unplug the phone line from the modem and plug it back into the phone.
12. Go back to step 3.
The process got a bit easier when I found a "Y" connector for a phone line at my local Radio Shack. This meant I could drop steps 6 and 11.
2 comments:
Okay... you just educated me on something I had no idea existed! I have a Commodore keyboard and etc which I picked up along the way. Didn't know how it was used outside of the TV... Wow! Interesting! Great story!
In 1994, when I was a freshman in high school, my mother bought us a PC (Win 3.11! Woot! Those were the days!) on sale at Best Buy for the Christmas season and set us up with a Prodigy account.
Oh. my. god.
I feel fortunate to have lead my generation through the series of tubes that we have today.
And have found myself as a mother saying "Back in my day, we didn't have Google!" to my 6 year old. Yeesh.
I remember leaving my computer connected all day to download a 1 minute music video clip while I was at school and coming home only to get angry that someone had called the house and kicked us off of the dial-up connection.
Ahhhh the old days...
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