45-Year-Old Modem Used To Surf the Web 622
EdIII writes with this awesome snippet from Hack a Day: "'[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. Lucky for [phreakmonkey] they managed to decide on a modulation standard in 1962. It's still amazing to see this machine working 45 years later.' Although impractical for surfing the Internet today, there is something truly cool about getting a 45-year old modem to work with modern technology. The question I have, is what is the oldest working piece of equipment fellow Slashdotters have out there? I'm afraid as far back as I can go is a Number Nine Imagine 128 Series 2 Graphics card on a server still in use at my house which only puts me at about 14 years."
Just Throw It on the Meme Heap (Score:5, Funny)
And I suppose the instant I show any signs of lag in World of Warcraft I'll have to listen to my guildmates crack jokes about me using a 1964 Livermore Data Systems Model A Acoustic Coupler Modem ruining the raid.
Re:Just Throw It on the Meme Heap (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
+++
Re:Just Throw It on the Meme Heap (Score:5, Interesting)
ping -c 5 -p 2B2B2B41544829
As recently as a few months ago a friend was on the internet with his laptop (running linux) and it was still susceptible to this. After about an hour of fun I remotely patched his modem for him. Those were the days.
*2B2B2B41544829 = +++ATH0, when the computer replies with the command it is intercepted locally and causes the modem to hang up.
Re:Just Throw It on the Meme Heap (Score:5, Informative)
If you watched the video you'd know that this acoustic coupler doesn't support AT commands - or any other kinds of commands. it just converts bits it receives on the serial port into pulses in the tone it generates, and it converts pulses it receives into bits on the serial port.
Seymour Cray and the common telephone (Score:3, Interesting)
An old friend of mine, the late Bob Long (W6QBN) once spoke of an incident when he was a tech at CDC many years ago. "Seymour hated phones" he said. One day he came to visit the Arbor Vitae Cybernet site in Los Angeles and everyone carefully removed all the telephones that would be in his path.
Unfortunately, one phone was overlooked, a hand set in the corner of the room that was dedicated to the use of just such an acoustic coupler. Murphy being an employee of the installation, the phone rang just as he
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
C/PM 80! Fortran 70! Stronium 90! Polysorbate 80! or Fight!
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Just Throw It on the Meme Heap (Score:5, Funny)
oldest piece of "equipment" (Score:5, Funny)
Re:oldest piece of "equipment" (Score:5, Funny)
I just needed a long time to know how to work it.
I assume you are referring to that useless "dongle" between your legs?
Re:oldest piece of "equipment" (Score:5, Funny)
Useless until he figured out the protocol for the handshake.
Re:oldest piece of "equipment" (Score:5, Insightful)
The handshake protocol is easy, the peer finding is the tricky part.
Re:oldest piece of "equipment" (Score:5, Funny)
Beware of viruses when making connections to untrusted hosts!
Re:oldest piece of "equipment" (Score:5, Funny)
Beware of viruses when making connections to untrusted hosts!
Viruses are something that can be dealt with - unintentionally spawning new processes is another matter entirely...
Re:oldest piece of "equipment" (Score:5, Funny)
As a parent, you're allowed to kill your children. If you do not wait for your children they'll become zombies and if you die, your children will be adopted by someone else. Maybe you should finger the user before making a connection.
UNIX is full of great metaphors and such....
Re:oldest piece of "equipment" (Score:5, Funny)
Forget about fingering, they won't even let me sniff their ports.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
PS: My GF says she hopes you are getting laid.
Re:oldest piece of "equipment" (Score:4, Funny)
Indeed I once was. I have successfully spawned two new processes. However, these new processes consume a lot of resources and we worry that spawning any more might cause the kernel (bank) to OOM (out of money) kill us.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
dongle
Most useless dongle ever: you use it to disable your built in copy protection.
Re:oldest piece of "equipment" (Score:4, Funny)
bing!
Oldest Working? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Oldest Working? (Score:4, Funny)
TRS-80 Model 1 still in it's box with all documents and packaging.
No I haven't kept it that long, I found it as NOS in a tiny town rat-shack 10 years ago. bought it for $10.00 and a 6 pack of beer.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Apple //e with 4-digit serial number, purchased February 1983, still in my attic. I haven't fired it up in years, and I might, this weekend. Mac Plus from 1986.
Re:Oldest Working? (Score:5, Funny)
I have an abacus that's really old. :-(
Unfortunately, I can't find the system disks to boot it up
My hammer. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:My hammer. (Score:4, Insightful)
My hammer was made in 1876.
But your grandfather replaced the handle and your father replaced the head, right?:)
Re:My hammer. (Score:5, Informative)
For those not familiar, the parent is referencing the Ship of Theseus paradox [wikipedia.org] which is an interesting read.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I would read it, but I haven't felt the same since my brain transplant.
I recently read about some Buddhists who were turned down on historical status for their temple which has been torn down and rebuilt several times. They claimed that the materials that make the structure of the temple may be transient, but that the space enclosed is the important element and is therefore very old.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Dude, dont post about your incestuous family affairs,
whatever turns your crank, just don't post it here...mmmK! O_O
Re:My hammer. (Score:5, Insightful)
"This, milord, is my family's axe. We have owned it for almost nine hundred years, see. Of course, sometimes it needed a new blade. And sometimes it has required a new handle, new designs on the metalwork, a little refreshing of the ornamentation . . . but is this not the nine hundred-year-old axe of my family? And because it has changed gently over time, it is still a pretty good axe, y'know. Pretty good."- Low King Rhys Rhysson
The Fifth Elephant, by Terry Pratchett
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
A shallow materialist will laugh at the "900" year old axe. Meanwhile, the deeper meaning is that someone has a connection to 900 years of family history and tradition.
Re:My hammer. (Score:5, Funny)
Unimpressive, all of you. Most of the atoms in my computer are like, billions of years old.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:My hammer. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:My hammer. (Score:5, Interesting)
I think a lot of things in those days were built without a really good understanding of engineering, so things were typically over-engineered. Things were built far stronger than they needed to be because people didn't have a good understanding of the strengths of the materials they were using or of the physics being employed in their designs. Likewise, without a lot of advanced chemical and metallurgical expertise, they weren't able to create materials specifically to meet the demands of the job like we can today.
The result is they had things that were much stronger, but took a lot longer and cost a lot more to make. Now, we have things that are designed specifically to try and hit the sweet spot between durability and cost, and that can be efficiently mass produced. As a result, our stuff doesn't last as long, but we can afford to buy a whole lot more stuff.
Re:My hammer. (Score:5, Funny)
Now, we have things that are designed specifically to try and hit the sweet spot between durability and cost
by that definition, my walmart deck lounger is the most precisely engineered piece of equipment in the history of mankind. Whenever I sit down, I feel like it's half a hamburger away from catastrophic failure. (that's one croissant in metric units)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
(that's one croissant in metric units)
What's that in wafer thin mints?
Re:My hammer. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:My hammer. (Score:5, Insightful)
And I bet it still interfaces flawlessly with your modern computer. Today's engineers could learn from that.
Model M Keyboard (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
I happen to have 2, yes 2, Model M keyboards if you, or anyone else, wants to purchase them from me. The date on the back of both is 06OCT86.
No, I'm not going to gouge for the price. Something reasonable. You pay actual shipping costs.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Drag it behind a donkey, it'll survive the trip about as well as Indiana Jones surviving a nuclear blast in a refrigerator.
Re:Model M Keyboard (Score:5, Funny)
I'll pay $5, as that's what Google says [google.com] a keyboard is worth.
Google is old hat - everyone who is anyone uses Wolfram Alpha. Alpha-ing "cost of keyboard" [wolframalpha.com] gives a price of $47.87 - although if it has a "market cap" (is that anything like caps lock?) the price skyrockets to $21.2 billion.
Just be glad you're looking at the cost of a keyboard instead of the actual value [wolframalpha.com] - according to Wolfram Alpha, the value of a keyboard is U+2328. Although I'm not sure what that is in US dollars, because "convert U+2328 to US dollars" [wolframalpha.com] doesn't seem to give anything helpful.
Re:Model M Keyboard (Score:5, Funny)
Google is old hat - everyone who is anyone uses Wolfram Alpha. Alpha-ing "cost of keyboard" [wolframalpha.com] gives a price of $47.87 - although if it has a "market cap" (is that anything like caps lock?) the price skyrockets to $21.2 billion.
Just be glad you're looking at the cost of a keyboard instead of the actual value [wolframalpha.com] - according to Wolfram Alpha, the value of a keyboard is U+2328. Although I'm not sure what that is in US dollars, because "convert U+2328 to US dollars" [wolframalpha.com] doesn't seem to give anything helpful.
Dude, Alpha is so old school... these days we "bing" things... get with the times!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Ignore my post. Jumped the gun. While I do have 2 keyboards, they are for IBM terminals and not adaptable for PC use.
*mumbles something about Alzheimer's creeping in*
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Ignore my post. Jumped the gun. While I do have 2 keyboards, they are for IBM terminals and not adaptable for PC use.
I assume you mean they cannot be directly plugged in. This is not the same as "adaptable". Depending on the amount of effort you are willing to spend, almost anything/a. is adaptable for use as a PC keboard. [multipledigression.com]
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
2 modems, 4 cans, 2 strings.... (Score:5, Interesting)
I've often wanted to dig up 2 acoustic coupled modems, 4 tin cans, and 2 strings, and see if I could get the modems to work over that.
Re:2 modems, 4 cans, 2 strings.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:2 modems, 4 cans, 2 strings.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Try PSK31 (31.25 bps binary phase shift keying mode used for ham radio) with a couple of sound cards. It'll work over open air with a speaker and microphone. If you used two different carrier tones, you could probably do full duplex.
For my own implementation of PSK31, I once ran it at a carrier of 62.5 hz. Sounded more like war drums than a digital mode over my subwoofer, but it still decoded OK.
Re:2 modems, 4 cans, 2 strings.... (Score:5, Funny)
Try PSK31 (31.25 bps binary phase shift keying mode used for ham radio) with a couple of sound cards. It'll work over open air with a speaker and microphone. If you used two different carrier tones, you could probably do full duplex.
For my own implementation of PSK31, I once ran it at a carrier of 62.5 hz. Sounded more like war drums than a digital mode over my subwoofer, but it still decoded OK.
sick.....you are all sick.......
Re:2 modems, 4 cans, 2 strings.... (Score:5, Insightful)
These people are hackers. Mostly that means good things.
Pushing the bounds of technology is one of the most ancient and noble occupations. Many geeks also manage to push the bounds of reason, good taste, and hygiene, but creativity in tool-using is perhaps the defining element of humanity. Certainly the drive to tinker is responsible for the majority of our progress as a species.
Slashdot is where that impulse goes to die :) Stay tuned for beowulf clusters of linux-running hot grits overlords.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Let's see, 2 modems, 4 cans, 2 strings... how many cups?
Atari Baby (Score:3, Interesting)
Does test equipment count? (Score:4, Interesting)
I keep a Hewlitt-Packard oscilloscope out in my car that was manufactured sometime in the mid-50s.
It still works, but I've only had to use it about three times in my professional life.
Commadore Amiga 500 (Score:5, Interesting)
Oldest kit? (Score:2)
Back then (Score:4, Insightful)
I doubt anyone will be able to run a GTX 280 in 45 years.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Hell, I can't get my 8800GTX from 2 years ago to work because EVGA won't honor their "Lifetime* Warranty".
*apparently NOT lifetime
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
What do you mean, "not lifetime"? It lasted for the entire lifetime of the card, didn't it?
PowerMac 5400 (Score:4, Interesting)
"Would you like to play a game?" (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
I'm pretty sure you're thinking of Wargames. Ferris Bueller never hacked into any goverment computers.
About 30 years here... (Score:2)
oldest pieces? (Score:5, Funny)
The question I have, is what is the oldest working piece of equipment fellow Slashdotters have out there?
Well as far as modem technology goes I've still got a classic 1200 baud Hayes modem; must be from the early 80s I would guess (perhaps older?); it was working fine when I stopped using it around 1993 or so (upgraded to 2400 baud FTW!!)* ... I'm sure it would still work if I plugged it in today but I'm not hunting down an RS-232 adapter to find out. If we want to talk audio gear I've got some much older items, including a pair of AR speakers from the 60s that still sound pretty damn good... Now get the hell off my lawn!
* (and back then FTW still meant Fuck the World!!)
PLEASE! Establish an "R2D2 Standard" (Score:3, Funny)
Pick a small set of standards that will work "well enough" and let them become the Legacy Standard. I'm so sick of going to garage sales and seeing good equipment, such as printers and scanners, that won't connect to any computer that I own. I have a drawer full of PS/2 keyboards.
I hope that someday, someone posts a
The grandson of Hemos connected to the DukeNukemForeverNet* using a computer with USB, DVI, a drive that SPINS, and only 64GB of RAM, after all, 64GB should be enough RAM for anybody.
*DNFNEt is a networking protocol that uses baling wire and bubble gum... and I'm all out of bubble gum.
Where'd you get a compatible handset? (Score:4, Interesting)
Most of the acoustic couplers back in the day were fairly picky about the telephone handset used.
I make it a point to get rid of old digital gear, but I do have a telephone from the 1920s. It's still hooked up, and is one of the few reasons I still have a landline. It has the rayon-covered cord and everything.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Anyone still paying for a phone? (Score:5, Funny)
Heh, you might check your parents or grandma... they have probably paid thousands of dollars for that phone over the years.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The more things change, the more they stay the same. I take it you don't even look at your cell phone bill? Hint: It would be hard not to pay "thousands of dollars ... over the years" with just about any contract. $50/month + taxes + bogus fees adds up fast.
You can STILL rent a Bell System phone! (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
For retro shits-n-giggles, I have two rotary phones (one wall mount, one desk) that ring with bells, etc.. I have an Asterisk system in the house, separate extensions in each room. But for my office, I like the funky old classic. It works fine with a Linksys ATA (pulse dialing, ringing). On some devices (iAXY), pulse dialing and sufficient ring current isn't provided, so they don't work; but on devices that still support pulse dialing, they do work nicely.
I also have a hand-crank phone (turn the crank t
Still working with Paper Tape (Score:5, Informative)
The CNC industry is still using NC machines built to work with paper tape. 30 years old and still going strong ...
Well, it's no spring chicken (Score:2)
I've still got a working Apple 2c and a custom-modified dot matrix printer to use with it.
And a rock. I've got a rock. I bet it would still do the same job some caveman would have used it for if he found out the chief was shagging his cave-mate, though I just use it as a doorstop.
How Old Is My Crap: Mac ][ci (Score:3, Interesting)
If we're gonna get into a how-old-is-my-crap thread: my oldest working gear is a 1989 Mac ][ci running NetBSD that I periodically haul out of the closet to use as a testbed within my private network. Used to be my dad's photoshop box, then handed down to my wife, and finally into my grubby paws. Its small, easy to store, boxy shape has saved it from her annual pogroms against old gear.
Old stuff (Score:2)
Not that old, really, but...
Mac Plus (1986)
Atari 400 plus peripherals, including an ATR8000, which is a Z80 box that doubled as a CPM machine and an Atari peripherals controller (1983)
Sinclair ZX80 computer (1981) (I can't swear that this still works)
Ancient Laptop! (Score:2)
Primary Keyboard: 1991 IBM Model M (Score:2, Informative)
How about oldest piece of equipment in regular use?
I use a 1991 IBM Model M at my main workstation, which puts me at 18 years. They just don't make them like this anymore (well actually Unicomp [pckeyboard.com] does)
Apple IIe, Compaq (Score:2)
I also have the original Compaq portable [wikipedia.org], which was arguably the first laptop computer. Sadly, one of my students smoked the power supply a couple years back, so it no longer works. I know that eliminates it from the category of "still working", but it did work for 26 years, which is fairly impressive. And its still fun to show people the design.
ISA slots (Score:2)
The oldest I have in service is a Cyrix 6x86 system running Windows 98 SE. I need it for the ISA slots so that I can run my *Needhams PB-10 EPROM burner.
* Since www.needhams.com doesn't come up anymore, I wonder if they are even still in business. :-(
Myself... (Score:2)
Sega Master System (Score:2)
My older brother got a Sega Master system for his fifth Christmas, which puts me at three years old. So, the system is twenty years old.
We still have Afterburner, Hang On!/Safari Hunt, and Wonder Boy, and a light gun controller. All of these still function when I last checked about a year ago, although to use it now it and all of its cables must be recovered from the electronics graveyard (my dad's garage).
Commodore 64 (Score:2)
Old (Score:5, Funny)
what is the oldest working piece of equipment fellow Slashdotters have out there?
There's this rock I use as a paperweight next to my computer. I figure it's anywhere between 100 million and 2 billion years old.
Procrastinate much? (Score:5, Funny)
He recieved it in 1989 and recently decided to see if it would actually work.
Wow. And I thought I was bad about putting things off.
I got this... (Score:3, Informative)
Old equipment. (Score:3, Interesting)
One of my friends came up with a Western Union teletype that still had some paper with their name along one edge. The paper was yellowed with age. The teletype used a 5-bit baudot code, which wikipedia says Western Union stopped using in 1950. We hacked a printer port into an Atari 800, and started putting out the baudot. We had plans to write things like "JAPAN BOMBS PEARL HARBOR!" or "DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN!" which would have looked wicked on the yellow Western Union paper, but we settled for writing things like "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog." and "All good men come to the aid of their country."
-Loyal
DSL modem, circa 2000 (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not ludicrously old, but: my DSL modem died a few months ago (my own fault -- if it has air vents in it, they may actually be there for a reason, not just to look cool and futuristic). I went into a bit of a panic, because, really, where does one get a DSL modem, especially if one suddenly has no Internet access? I feared calling Verizon would result in long delays, pricey expenditures, and/or bafflement.
Fortunately, a friend of mine up the street who I knew to be a bit of a tech hoarder still had his, even though he had switched to line-of-site wireless years ago. The modem was nearly 10 years old, and twice as big as the one I'd been using, but sure enough I just plugged it into my phone line and worked great -- same speeds I was getting with the old modem (2.8M down, 600K up). I was sort of shocked that something that old could just plug in to my current set up with no changes, but I suppose there haven't exactly been great strides in DSL technologies over the past decade or so.
Amiga 2000 to surf the web (Score:4, Interesting)
I still have an Amiga 2000 standing around from 1989 with a 8 Mhz 68000 CPU and 7 MB RAM. Funny thing about it is that it can run the relatively modern AmigaOS 3.1, for which reasonably well working graphical web browsers exist. Occasionally I fire it for fun just to demonstrate that 80's hardware can show web pages in a semi decent way. Configure it to run on a 640x400 screen with 8 shades of grey and it still shows most of the modern web sites that have some sort of accessibility fall back. It can do tables and basic CSS, so in some cases the results are almost indistinguishable from what you see on a modern browser. Of course it is awfully slow and needs several seconds to render a medium sized PNG image.
It's particular cool to show it too kids that think you need GHz's and GB's to surf the web.
Oldest Working? (Score:3, Interesting)
Computer related? ASR33 teletype (1965). I occasionally fire it up to show off my AIM-65 (1976).
Audio equipment? 1958 Harmon Kardon Stereo Festival TA230. I play MP3's through it on a pair of Klipsch KG2s (1982). Still sounds great.
got an 1924 Philco radio I just restored (Score:3, Interesting)
still working sporadically on a 1920s Kellogg oak wall phone, which still needs a network. got some working 00A, 01A, and D5A tubes, too.
no really fusty computer hardware left, except a core board from an old posting/billing workstation by NCR from about 1964. 2K, no expansion possible.
Amiga (Score:3, Informative)
A couple of years ago I fired up my old Amiga 1000. What's that, circa '84, '85? Nifty machine. Still have my Apple II+, but that's been in storage forever. Also have an original Macintosh, but no peripherals (was someone's paperweight). I powered it up, sounded like it was working, but no screen. Haven't got around to cracking it open to play with the innards. Oh, forgot the old Okidata dot matrix printer for the II+. Wonder if I could get that to work? I'll have to find it. Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever thrown out any computer equipment. Well, at least they eBay now!
PDP-11 (Score:4, Interesting)
Netronics Elf II (Score:3, Interesting)
I still have my Netronics Elf II computer - the first one I owned. RCA 1802 processor, Hex keypad, 2 7-digit LED display!
I no longer have the OSI C2P that was my second computer, or the thermal printer/terminal with APL keyboard and integral 300 baud acoustic modem I used throughout college. I even had a beautiful ADM3A terminal for while.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
And what's the baud rate of that?