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45-Year-Old Modem Used To Surf the Web
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."
My name is Junis, I am posting this from a Commodore64 and my 1964 Livermore Data Systems Model A Acoustic Coupler Modem in Afghanistan after years of oppression underneath the Taliban ...</meme>
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.
My work here is dung.
is just as old as I am... I just needed a long time to know how to work it.
The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness.
My hammer was made in 1876.
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!!)
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.
I mean the phone instrument itself, perhaps with a dial? You know, the heavy duty ones that say property of Bell on the bottom?
Heh, you might check your parents or grandma... they have probably paid thousands of dollars for that phone over the years.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
This is a... I would like to try this.
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.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I'll pay $5, as that's what Google says a keyboard is worth. Hell, I'll throw on an extra $5 just for the loud sound effects it makes, just to annoy my coworkers around me.
Drag it behind a donkey, it'll survive the trip about as well as Indiana Jones surviving a nuclear blast in a refrigerator.
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*
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
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.
I have a 14" Radiation King that refuses to die. It's from about 1990, just before radiation levels became a marketing thing. Now I guess we just assume low radiation, as I haven't seen that touted as a selling point for quite some time.
Loose lips lose spit.
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.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
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" 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 - 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" doesn't seem to give anything helpful.
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.......
Website Hosting
What do you mean, "not lifetime"? It lasted for the entire lifetime of the card, didn't it?
Google is old hat - everyone who is anyone uses Wolfram Alpha. Alpha-ing "cost of keyboard" 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 - 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" doesn't seem to give anything helpful.
Dude, Alpha is so old school... these days we "bing" things... get with the times!
Stop! Dremel time!
I have an abacus that's really old. :-(
Unfortunately, I can't find the system disks to boot it up
You expected someone who goes by the moniker "phreakmonkey" to throw away an old telephone?
Let's see, 2 modems, 4 cans, 2 strings... how many cups?
As a linguist, I'm curious; what language has your post been translated from?