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Comment by quesera

20 hours ago

> I've used links with modems rocking 1200 bps

Yo, 300 baud, checking in.

Do I hear 110?

+++ATH0

My first modem (from 1987) was 300 baud, but it could be used in a split mode called 75/1200.

Before that I used 50 baud systems in the military as well as civil telex systems.

  • Mine was 300 baud, probably 1982?

    And I felt privileged because the configuration for my TI-99/4A Terminal Emulator (which I believe was called Terminal Emulator) had options for 110 or 300 baud, and I felt lucky to be able to use the "fast" one. :)

    My first modem (you always remember your first) had no carrier detection (and no Hayes commands, and no speaker...), so I would dial the number manually, then flip a switch when I heard the remote end pick up and send carrier to get the synchronization started.

    It was incredibly exciting at the time.

Ah, the good old days. I remember dialing up local BBSes with QMODEM.

AT&C1&D2S36=7DT*70,,,5551212

  • PoiZoN BBS Sysop chiming in. I ran the BBS on a free phone line I found in my childhood bedroom. I alerted the phone company and a tech spent a day trying to untangle it, but gave up at the end of his shift. He even stopped by to tell me it wouldn’t be fixed.

    I didn’t know the phone number, so I bought a Caller ID box, hooked it to my home line, and phoned home. It wasn’t long before every BBS in town had a listing for it.

    • That's awesome.

      I had to wait til I was old enough to get a phone line in my own name before running a BBS. And also til I had a modem that would auto-answer, which was not a given back then!

      But I confess my first question for a working but unassigned phone line would be: who gets the bill for long distance calls?

      I had access to no-cost long distance calling through other administrative oversights, but they were a bit more effort to maintain! :)

Ha, same! On a TRS-80 Color, nonetheless. But I think I used four times, because no one else in the country had a BBS at the time (small city in Latin America).

It took a couple of years until it would catch on, and by then 1200 and 2400 bps were already the norm - thankfully!