What was your first Modem?
 

A few mods were just chatting about a new feature we they are working on for the board and it started a brief discussion about modems. Specifically, what was your first modem?

For me, my first modem was a hand me down 2400 (I am pretty sure my Father in Law gave it to me but it could have been my roommate as well). This was about 1991 or so and I used it to log onto local BBSs and some early Internet content (mostly news net stuff). I remember loving the sound of modem squelch and when I upgraded first to a 9600 and then to a 14.4 modem, I loved how the sound of the modem changed.

I don't think I have used a modem for about 10 years now. The last one I used was probably one that was built into a laptop and used to access the Internet while travelling on business. Since wifi and broadband, I don't think I've used a modem.

How about you? What was your first modem? Do you miss the sound of connecting?

2400 bps modem built into an IBM PS/2.

We might've been hanging out on the same BBSes.

Ha! I haven't thought about modems in years. The screech of my 2400 as I signed onto America Online for the very first time is still a very distinct memory. God, it was like magic to me.

And the excitement when installing a new modem -- the jump from 2400 to 14.4, it was a quantum space-time leap for me.

I'm pretty sure mine was a late-model PS/1. It had a 2400 in it too. I quickly upgraded to an external 56k. That, in addition to upgrading to a CD-ROM drive and doubling the memory to 16 MB, made me feel like hot shit. I played a lot of MajorMUD on it. It's amazing what you could do on 16 MB of RAM and 25 MHz.

Martian, I find it interesting that your 2400 was built into your computer. My first few modems were all external devices. I don't think I had a modem card until the late 90s.

Charlatan, I think you needed to go external for the "high speed" modems. I'm pretty sure my PS/1 was purchased in '92 or '93.

I seem to recall that as well. That said, my 2400 was a grey box with flashing red lights. It was about the tickness of a paperback but slightly larger.

My 56k was this US Robotics unit:
http://i170.photobucket.com/albums/u.../tfp/usr56.jpg

I've had most of them. All built in. 14.4K, 28.8K, 33.6K and 56K.

Played Quake II on 36.6K and 56K. Good times.

2400 speed Netcomm. I remember logging into Sierra's BBS to get a hint for Kings Quest 4. Ah, the good old days.

300 baud acoustic coupler was the first one I used.

1200 baud Hayes Smartmodem, I bought it for a like $700. I never opened it, and sold it to someone else.

So the first one that I owned was a Supra 2400 as the first modem I owned attached to my Atari 1040ST.

If you do remember BBSing, check out the series.

[bbs documentary] The BBS Documentary - Part 1 - Baud

It was a 14.4k modem which we used to access CompuServe. I don't remember much about using CompuServe, other than the fact it was really slow. They had these different... groups or something? I don't know. Oddly, I'm more familiar with the early days of AOL, which I used at a friend's house because he lived in the future with his 56k! We'd hang out in the chat rooms and trade warez and mp3s (when they were still considered warez) and, of course, porn. One thing I'll never forget is this one time we were in an AOL chat room and someone said "IM me." And we thought they were saying "I'm me." It was so confusing! Once we upgraded to 56k at home, I'd rush home to play Doom online with a classmate. It was awesome!

I never used Compuserv or AOL.

I signed up with one of the first public ISPs in Toronto (I can't remember its name but a few years later it was bought out by a larger company and then that one too was bought out). By that time I had switched to another small boutique ISP.

All I remember of AOL was the huge number of CDs that were floating around.

In digging around on the internet I have come to the conclusion that the computer we had was a PS/1 and not a PS/2. In my defence, this was almost 20 years ago.

Confirming what I suspected, all PS/1 models had a built-in 2400 bps modem, and an internal modem on the MCA bus was a popular option for the PS/2's as well.

I do still remember the specs. 386 25 MHz processor, 2 MB RAM and a whopping 40 MB hard drive. It only had a PC speaker for sound, but did have a VGA display so at least the graphics were pretty.

I broke that thing regularly while figuring out how it worked. Thankfully it was never a permanent condition.

My first computer was a 486 with 2MB of RAM and 500 MB harddrive. I remember it was made by a company out in Oshawa called Red Baron. Prior to that I had a DOS only hand me down. I used to run Word Perfect so I could write my University papers.

A 300 baud modem with my Commodore 64. I used it from Anchorage, AK in 1984-1987 to access a Commodore BBS in Eagle River, AK and also Compuserve (via Tymnet at some ridiculous price).

I had a modem on my 386 that was an external 1200 baud Hayes Smartmodem like Cyn had. When I upgraded to my Packard Bell 486/66 I got a nice shiny 56k to play Duke Nukem 3d and connect to AOL 3.0.

I remember using this modem once at the computer shop I worked at when I was 13. Had a guy who bought this brand new (when it first came out) and used it on the job. For what? I can't even remember. It was hand held and had a little 2 line LCD screen that you could type numbers into. I thought it was the greatest thing ever because it looked SO OLD back in... the early 90's. It kinda looked like this.

http://www.old-computers.com/MUSEUM/...-coupler_1.jpg

300. 1200. 2400. 14.4k I paid 450 Guilders for that one and it had a buggy bios. 28 and then various 56k ones. I still use one for dialing. I wrote my own telephone dialers over the years.

Early 1980s, 300 baud VICmodem for my Commodore 64.

The 6502 chip in that computer will always be my favorite piece of technology.
You could visualize the whole thing in one thought process - or so it seemed.

My first PC had an internal modem card, 2400 baud, I forget the brand but I still have the whole contraption at home.

This was in an NEC Powermate 80286, 10MHz with a whopping 640k ram and 40meg hard drive (largest available at the time) running MS DOS since it was before MS Windows came out. For what I needed to do back then it was speed of light fast compared to "reaction time" of my current SOTA POS.

Btw, is this déjà vu all over again? Somewhere here this question was already explored.

I used to enjoy singing along with the modem as it connected.

Apple computer, mid 80's, was like a 100 or 300 baud modem - the plug the handset in to it type. We used to connect to the BBS sites of the local radio stations.

my first computer was a 486 with 1 GB of memory back in 1996. i barely knew how to turn one on before then.

like charlatan, i used to use it for doing my university papers....and THEN a few weeks later i discovered the interwebz, and i was hooked..forget about study!

i dont recall how fast the modem was, but i remember at the time how happy i was with the slow loading pictures. Magellan and Lycos seem lightyears away

---------- Post added at 12:26 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:24 AM ----------

i did find a way to 'shut my modem up' by putting a code in the settings.. worked wonders, until dad busted me up at night at 3am on IRC.

I loved that sound!

Dark, dark memories.

Haha! Yes! That's hilarious, I had the exact same reaction the first time I went on AOL. I remember sitting there and being so nervous in this brand new world called a "chat room." And then these people would just type im me, im me, im me. It took me a LONG time to figure out what they meant by that. I seriously thought it was some kind of self affirmation AOL slang -- maybe by being online, they had to constantly be reminding themselves who they were.

Wasn't there a 92 or 96k modem? I'm pretty sure it was 92. Those suckers were fast in the day!

Then when cable modems came home - oh holy hell - those were THE most desirable things EVER. I remember envying my friend for having it, and never wanting to leave their home for my place with my dial-up modem.

You guys are all nerds. My SO would fit in this thread perfectly.

Sue, I think you mean 56k. That was my first modem as well. I didn't own a PC until Windows 98. Before that, we had a Mac LCIII. It didn't come with a modem, and although I had a vague idea that you could get one and do stuff with it, no one I knew did anything that nerdy, or so I thought. Looking back I can think of a few guys who were probably chillin' on BBSs. I WISH I had known about BBSs...Legend of the Red Dragon FTW!

I can't believe none of you seemed to have heard of or played MajorMUD. It's like the proto-WoW. It's like a cross between Zork and WoW. (And apparently it's still active....)

Gawd! Y'all are Nerds!!

http://eimages.ecost.com/prod/6493000/6493968_lg.jpg

Generation Y just doesn't "get it."

You don't get "technology in transition" like we do!

It was a 300 baud for my TI-99/4a. It had to be 1982 or 1983. I had wish I still had that craptacular computer.

800 baud back in '85 - government comp - DEC...

Nope, I found out I actually meant V.92. ;)

I had a built in 56k USR modem in my first computer that I owned (a pentium in about 1997) but had been using a 24k modem in my mothers Mac for a few years before that.

v. 92 is 56k. Specifically it was the last iteration of 56k, but wasn't widely adopted.

Daniel, are you sure it wasn't 28.8? It's possible that Apple had a 24k modem I suppose, but that wasn't the standard.

9600 baud modem for the Atari ST, then a 14.4 for PC, then a 56k.

I think my first modem was a 2400 hooked to a Pionex 486 DX, 33 Mhz. 2 MB RAM, 220 MB HDD. 14 " VGA monitor. Lol. But something the younger crowd may not understand, it may have been a slow modem but I was pretty thrilled, at the time, to be able to get on Compuserve, Prodigy, etc. Prior to that I had an Amiga 500, Atari 520ST, Commodore 64, etc. But that Pionex was my first computer that had a HDD and a modem.

Don't get me wrong, I love modern computers. But I think the 80's and 90's were kind of the "golden age" of personal computers. If you've never typed in a long program from a magazine or used a tape-drive I don't want to hear any complaining about your slow broadband speed. Or complaints about a 1 TB hard drive costing a whopping $100.

The most nostalgic aspect of the old slow modems, in my mind, is how the text would appear on the screen character by character.

I recently came across a young man complaining because he was receiving pings in the 40-50 ms range, and these were apparently making his games unplayable. I wanted to tell him that back in the days of Quake 2 we'd get pings of 200 and thank our lucky stars that it was so fast. Then I realized I'm an old man. Not just any old man, but that old man.

Get the hell off my lawn.

I remember playing Doom against a friend by modem. That was like 1993 or so. At the time it was very cool.

Yeah, I'm going to need everybody to get off of my lawn as well.