The OS armaggedon is coming

In article , Roger Blake
wrote:

the pdp-11s had high speed paper tape readers. those were fun to watch
and way the hell faster than what was on the asr-33.

I remember having to toggle the low-speed paper tape reader program
into the switch register on the front console, which could then
load the high-speed paper tape reader from a tape.

i knew someone who could toggle in a boot loader entirely from memory.

Then there were
those DECtape mag tapes on the small reels.

and the giant rk disks.

those were faster, but also noisy and frequently jammed or failed,
which is why they were often called drek-writers.

Fun times for sure! The young folks here arguing over their favorite
GUI don't know what they missed!

true, but they're also doing things that were once thought impossible.

On Sat, 2 Jun 2018 16:51:27 -0000 (UTC), Roger Blake
wrote:

On 2018-06-02, Jimmy Wilkinson Knife wrote:
My first connection was free from the university I was studying at.
My friend gave me an old 1200 modem to test it, then I bought a 14400.
Then I shared the connection via coax ethernet between me and a few
neighbours, also we could play multiplayer games and speak to each other.

You had 1200, then 14400 bps? They must have thought the sun shines out of
your ass! I had to make do with a 300 bps acoustic coupler. (It is still
sitting in a closet.) I remember doing some remote work on an overseas
Unix server with that and a VT100 terminal many years ago. Though I'm
sure some wisenheimer will pipe up and say they had to make do with a
hardcopy terminal connected to a 110 bps modem.

No - but I remember having to use a telephone to make an appointment
to download a 5MB file. 11 o'clock at night it was.
--

Regards,

Eric Stevens

On 06/03/2018 5:07 AM, Eric Stevens wrote:
On Sat, 2 Jun 2018 16:51:27 -0000 (UTC), Roger Blake
wrote:

On 2018-06-02, Jimmy Wilkinson Knife wrote:
My first connection was free from the university I was studying at.
My friend gave me an old 1200 modem to test it, then I bought a 14400.
Then I shared the connection via coax ethernet between me and a few
neighbours, also we could play multiplayer games and speak to each other.

You had 1200, then 14400 bps? They must have thought the sun shines out of
your ass! I had to make do with a 300 bps acoustic coupler. (It is still
sitting in a closet.) I remember doing some remote work on an overseas
Unix server with that and a VT100 terminal many years ago. Though I'm
sure some wisenheimer will pipe up and say they had to make do with a
hardcopy terminal connected to a 110 bps modem.

No - but I remember having to use a telephone to make an appointment
to download a 5MB file. 11 o'clock at night it was.


My mistake, Mine at home was an RO35, The one I used at work was an
ASR33 fed by an Interdata 7/16 Mini computer with bootstrap switches to
activate the tape reader to do the main load.

Rene

On 06/02/2018 12:11 PM, Jimmy Wilkinson Knife wrote:

[snip]

I remember those for some reason, never used one, not sure if it was a
museum or something I saw it in, maybe computing or history class at
school.

I got to use one of those (acoustic coupled modem) once when I was
helping a friend with his computer.

BTW, at the time, the ringer on his phone was not working. When I picked
up the phone, there was someone trying to call in.

[snip]

--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"No being is so important that he can usurp the rights of another" --
Picard to Data/Graves "The Schizoid Man"

On 06/02/2018 12:22 PM, nospam wrote:

[snip]

asr33 teletype, 110 baud acoustic modem, punched paper tape for storage.

For awhile I had a couple of 300 millibaud optical couplers between
serial ports, for testing a new terminal program (which I called V-term).

--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"No being is so important that he can usurp the rights of another" --
Picard to Data/Graves "The Schizoid Man"

On 06/02/2018 12:55 PM, Roger Blake wrote:

[snip]

Lowest speed I've had to deal with in a dialup modem was 300 bps. It was
pretty exciting to move up to a DEC DF03 modem at a blinding 1200 bps
that connected direct to the phone line rather than being acoustically
coupled. (Still have that as well.)

I remember hearing something about the frequencies used for 1200 baud
(actually 600 baud, 2 bits per signaling unit) modem were chosen to make
an acoustic coupler impractical.

--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"No being is so important that he can usurp the rights of another" --
Picard to Data/Graves "The Schizoid Man"

In article , Mark Lloyd
wrote:


I remember hearing something about the frequencies used for 1200 baud
(actually 600 baud, 2 bits per signaling unit) modem were chosen to make
an acoustic coupler impractical.

1200 baud acoustic modems existed and worked well, for their time.

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/29/a4/8d/2...98fb96397b--ac
oustic-modem.jpg

On Mon, 04 Jun 2018 07:41:38 +0100, Mr. Man-wai Chang wrote:

On 1/06/2018 2:30 PM, Jimmy Wilkinson Knife wrote:

The article is a pile of inaccurate bull****.

Firstly, I've never had a problem with any update once it's installed.
I only have a problem with it rebooting without my permission, the
computer could have been in the middle of something.

Same if you do a clean install every time Win 10 has major upgrades....

Why would you do that?

--
History teaches us that no other cause has brought more death than the word of god. -- Giulian Buzila

On Sun, 03 Jun 2018 17:27:26 +0100, Mark Lloyd wrote:

On 06/02/2018 12:11 PM, Jimmy Wilkinson Knife wrote:

[snip]

I remember those for some reason, never used one, not sure if it was a
museum or something I saw it in, maybe computing or history class at
school.

I got to use one of those (acoustic coupled modem) once when I was
helping a friend with his computer.

BTW, at the time, the ringer on his phone was not working. When I picked
up the phone, there was someone trying to call in.

When I were a lad living at home, I used the internet a lot with a modem and my sister used the phone a lot chatting. We only had the one line. So that I knew when the line was free instead of constantly having to check if she was finished her 2 hour phonecall, I put a permanent analogue voltmeter on the line so I could tell if it was in use. For some reason I also added an earpiece, I think it was to troubleshoot when my modem wouldn't connect - certain squeally sounds meant it was negotiating and others meant it was working. But I then discovered I could listen in on phonecalls and embarrass her with things she'd said. She found out it was there one day when she used the phone in my room when the main one wasn't working, and noticed she could hear herself from the earpiece sat on the desk. She was not amused.

--
Peter is listening to The Who - Behind Blue Eyes

On 06/03/2018 11:49 AM, nospam wrote:
In article , Mark Lloyd
wrote:


I remember hearing something about the frequencies used for 1200 baud
(actually 600 baud, 2 bits per signaling unit) modem were chosen to make
an acoustic coupler impractical.

1200 baud acoustic modems existed and worked well, for their time.

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/29/a4/8d/2...98fb96397b--ac
oustic-modem.jpg


Link is to an XML file with no information but "access denied".

--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"No being is so important that he can usurp the rights of another" --
Picard to Data/Graves "The Schizoid Man"

In article , Mark Lloyd
wrote:

I remember hearing something about the frequencies used for 1200 baud
(actually 600 baud, 2 bits per signaling unit) modem were chosen to make
an acoustic coupler impractical.

1200 baud acoustic modems existed and worked well, for their time.

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/29/a4/8d/2...98fb96397b--ac
oustic-modem.jpg

Link is to an XML file with no information but "access denied".

the link works fine. the problems is at your end.

Mark Lloyd wrote:
On 06/03/2018 11:49 AM, nospam wrote:
In article , Mark Lloyd
wrote:


I remember hearing something about the frequencies used for 1200 baud
(actually 600 baud, 2 bits per signaling unit) modem were chosen to make
an acoustic coupler impractical.

1200 baud acoustic modems existed and worked well, for their time.

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/29/a4/8d/2...98fb96397b--ac
oustic-modem.jpg


Link is to an XML file with no information but "access denied".


Copy everything from just after the less-than sign, to the greater-than sign.

The copied string begins with "https"

The copied string ends with "jpg"

If it spans more than one line on your screen, verify
you got all of it with your browser cursor.

Paste that into your browser.

Press the Enter key.

Paul

In article , Paul
wrote:

I remember hearing something about the frequencies used for 1200 baud
(actually 600 baud, 2 bits per signaling unit) modem were chosen to make
an acoustic coupler impractical.

1200 baud acoustic modems existed and worked well, for their time.

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/29/a4/8d/2...98fb96397b--ac
oustic-modem.jpg


Link is to an XML file with no information but "access denied".


Copy everything from just after the less-than sign, to the greater-than sign.

The copied string begins with "https"

The copied string ends with "jpg"

If it spans more than one line on your screen, verify
you got all of it with your browser cursor.

Paste that into your browser.

Press the Enter key.

or use a newsreader that is rfc compliant and detects links correctly.

On 1/06/2018 2:30 PM, Jimmy Wilkinson Knife wrote:

The article is a pile of inaccurate bull****.

Firstly, I've never had a problem with any update once it's installed.
I only have a problem with it rebooting without my permission, the
computer could have been in the middle of something.

Same if you do a clean install every time Win 10 has major upgrades....


--
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/ v \ Simplicity is Beauty!
/( _ )\ May the Force and farces be with you!
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(CSSA):
http://www.swd.gov.hk/tc/index/site_...sub_addressesa

Jimmy Wilkinson Knife wrote:
On Sat, 02 Jun 2018 16:37:27 +0100, Mark Lloyd wrote:

On 06/01/2018 08:20 PM, Roger Blake wrote:
On 2018-06-02, Jimmy Wilkinson Knife wrote:
Does anyone still have narrowband internet? Why would we need a DVD?
I can download 3GB (the whole of Windows) in 7.5 minutes. It would
take a day or three to receive the DVD by post. That's 384 times slower.

There are plenty or rural places in the US where the only choices
for internet access are dialup or satellite. I only went to broadband
a few years ago myself.

I had satellite internet (Starband) in 2001. That had problems when I
got it (very high and variable latency) and got so bad after a few
months that when I went back to POTS dialup (48kbps) it was a big
improvement.

BTW, when I took that dish down I could see workers replacing the cable,
getting ready for cable internet. That's now 50mbps. I downloaded
Windows 10 in less than 8 minutes.

No cable here, but we (almost everyone in the UK) gets "Fibre to the
cabinet". There are little boxes about a meter or so wide dotted around,
one within about half a mile of every house. It's very fast fibre to
those, then normal existing copper phoneline to the houses. I get 54Mbps.

Seeing as you live in Scotland you should know that's clearly not true.
There are significant parts of the population (not all of it rural) that
can't get fibre in the UK.

As reported here 53% of rural and 17% of urban households get 10Mbps
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/asse...dband-2017.pdf