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Master of Master Baiters Joined: 27 Jan 2008 Posts: 589

Do you remember the days of dial up when it would take two minutes for a picture to load Laughing

. Glad I have broadband now Cool

Posted: Sun May 25, 2008 6:05 pm

When I was first online, 1992 in my first semester in college, I would stop by the library first to pick up a book. Our library had computers but not ones that had true internet access.

I would take that book to one of the two computer labs on campus, so I had something to do between page loads. Now I get annoyed if it takes a second or two to load.

Posted: Sun May 25, 2008 7:19 pm

I remember those days. In the late 80's, early 90's I had a dial-up connection with a 300 bps modem. That was fast! Along cane the 1200 bps modem, and the 300 was too slow. Through the years, modems continued to improve along with speed, 2400 bps, 9600 bps, 14.4k bps, 28.8k bps, then 56k bps. I had every one of those. After broadband became available in my area and I made the switch, dial-up was painful to use because it's so slow. Listening to the pages creak as they load wasn't fun.

I used to use dial-up when I was traveling. That need no longer exists since the majority of the motel and hotel have wireless access.

Posted: Sun May 25, 2008 11:31 pm

I played around on a lot of ANSI BBS's, at one point. Spent way to much time learning to edit and tweak an Init string for modems too. Doing web pages back then Front page 98 had a neat feature that let you see how long it would take to DL the page at Dial Up speeds. As long as all of the sites were set up for low bandwidth things were pretty fast.

Interestingly enough I still have corporate clients who use Dial Up to access the work server. It's still considered much more secure.

Posted: Sun May 25, 2008 11:38 pm

God, I had dial up.... as I am such a technical muggins, I was paying for it by the minute too. It was pretty much the only choice you had at the time in the UK. You had to unplug your phone to plug in your modem link too, so if you were on the internet, no bugger could call you.

And then after that, the internet services that did broadband actually made it a selling point that the internet was "always on" and that you could recieve a phone call at the same time. Wowee!

Posted: Mon May 26, 2008 12:43 am

Stoker Thompson wrote:

I played around on a lot of ANSI BBS's, at one point.

So did I. I ran an ANSI and RIP BBS from 1994-1998. I started out with TriBBS, then switched to Wildcat software. I drew my own ansi screens with TheDraw. I had two nodes at 28.8, and close to 300 callers per day. I had all of the fun door games like LORD and LORD II, Trade Wars, Planets, Lunatix, Usurper, and about 60 others including card games, slots, and misc. games. I was also a beta tester for Seth Able Robinson. I had several gigs of files online for download. The messaging system was extremely busy with local users, and I was also a part of FidoNet and EchoNet so I carried several other nets as well.

Those were the good old days. Very Happy

Posted: Mon May 26, 2008 1:08 am

Eh gad! I hated dial up! I will never go back! I love my laptop with wireless, it's sooo nice!

Posted: Mon May 26, 2008 1:36 am

@ Sheboppe
I remember wildcat. I had a copy on 5.25 floppy disks! I think I set it up on a 386 or similar.

Remember this one:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BBS User from Hell!

THE HISTORY OF THE BBS USER

A Musical Drama in -V- parts

PART I

Dear SysOp:

I am a new uzer. I am ate yearz old and I have just gotten my first modem. I like to download lotsa files as long as you don't hafta upload in return. Pleez give me access on your bord.

Joe Blow.

Dear Joe:

I have given you minimal access in the kiddie file and message areas. We suggest that you learn to spell and learn your proper place in this community before attempting higher levels of access.

SysOp

Dear SysOp:

I kant figure out how to D/L [note user's discovery of BBS abbreviations]. I have tried to use XModem with no sucsess, and then I tried ZModem and everything went kablooie. Please help me so that I can download your good filez.

Joe Blow.

Dear Joe:

You're an idiot, but we like you. We think you have potential. I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to teach you how to use the file section, but you're going to learn to use it by UPLOADING [imagine teary-eyed face cringed with fear at this prospect]. Next time you log on, page me to chat and I'll show you how to upload a file.

The SysOp

Dear SysOp:

Okay.

Joe Blow

[ Transcript of first chat with SysOp follows ]

Select [M, F, E, C, P, G]: P

Paging your SysOp! . . . . . . .

The SysOp is here!

Hello, Joe!

NO CARRIER [ Joe hangs up, torn with fear ]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

the rest is over at: http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/95q1/bbsuserhell.html

Posted: Mon May 26, 2008 1:42 am

I was on a dial up until the end of last year.

I remember calling the phone company to get DSL only to be told it wasn't available in my area but would be in a few months. That was in 1999 I believe and it still isn't available.

A few years later I tried to get cable but they said I would have to get it for my TV as well and I didn't want to give up direct TV. Then I could get D-way but they wanted to charge me $99.99 a month plus installation even though I already was using them for my TV. So then I gave up Sad

About a year ago Roadrunner became available in my area but I didn't even bother to call because thought they would want to take over my TV service too. My internet connection was pretty useless. Youtube or anything like that was out of the question. If I had to load something larger then a few MB I would have to start then go watch a movie or something (go watch my stupid direct TV Laughing

). I finally called roadrunner and found out they would just provide me with internet service Very Happy

The upside is after being on a dial up for soooo long cable seems extremely fast but still I have to remind myself that it's okay to click on the youtube link.

My condolences to anyone still on a dial up.

Posted: Mon May 26, 2008 2:46 am

@Stoker - My copy came directly from Mustang Software on the 3.5 floppies. I still have the original software in the original box, and all Wildcat upgrades through 4.11 I believe. I started the BBS on a 386. It was running on a 486 when I shut it down.

I remember the THE HISTORY OF THE BBS USER. I had some like that, and a couple of locals that thought that it would be funny to upload a "game" that they wanted me to check out. It was a virus designed to destroy my BBS. It didn't work because I wrote a script to do nightly backups, and a back up of the backups. I knew that these kids weren't writing games and I simply deleted their upload.

I hung out on BBS's all over the US as well. I made a lot of friends through being a SysOp, and I met a lot of really great people. I used to chat with Jim Davis (Garfield) on his BBS, Programmer's Lair late nights. He has a lot of BBS software out that he wrote, and he was coding at those hours. We had some pretty interesting chats. I always looked on his BBS when I needed programming stuff.

Posted: Mon May 26, 2008 3:19 am

There is something beyond dial-up?

I live in a place that charges extra for just phone service because we are so far away from their Central Office. Shocked

Yup, it costs $5.00 more per month here than in town.*

No such thing as "cable" here either.

I joke that we get better service with a tin can and string.

*Do you think it is strange that I pay my phone bill by WU? Shocked

Seems like a scam to me, but not much other choice. Crying or Very sad

I have even seen the 8" floppy disks. Wish I had a couple because people don't believe that they existed. (I am not IT, so don't dazzle me, I am just old and tried to stay up with technology at one time.)

Posted: Mon May 26, 2008 6:17 am

My WWW baptism occured in 1996, via WebTV Rolling Eyes

28 kbps of severely truncated "information superhighway". My 1st PC came a year later & I didn't ditch dialup until mid-2006 or so. P2P'd nearly all the music I'd ever wanted the hard way - before switching to cable!

Posted: Mon May 26, 2008 11:08 am

I remember back in 97 buying a 14.4k USR external modem for £10, then using a Compuserve coverdisk off a magazine and a made up CC number to get a free trial for a few days until they spotted the CC number didn't work and cut me off. Interestingly enough, 5 minutes after I signed up I got my first phishing email claiming to be from Compuserve. Broadband came to the village about 3 years ago, and I've never looked back since.

Posted: Mon May 26, 2008 11:12 am

Quote:

Do you remember the days of dial up...

Remember them? They're still here. Hardly a day goes by where I don't curse my dial-up internet connection, but the only other option in this area is satellite broadband and that's still horrendously expensive here.

Posted: Mon May 26, 2008 1:54 pm

Hm .. those days you had to call the number on the phone, put the receiver on a dockin station and on it went. Is it that you are talking about?

Akustikkoppler those were called in German....

Posted: Mon May 26, 2008 2:36 pm

Downloading pron on a 9600 baud modem was no fun at all....

But seriously, Rolling Eyes

at one point, both daughters were connecting to the net from different pc's for 'homework' research, chatting to friends etc. Then I'd log on to Tesco's to order the shopping & everything would grind to a halt. Broadband was definately the best thing to hit our area.

Posted: Tue May 27, 2008 6:20 am

i had dial up untill about 3 years ago {im cheap i supose} but evry time it rained, my conection speed would drop to like 19200kpps. i finaly fired the phone company, and got cable. it was grate, then i fired the cable company and got dsl. I like firing people for bad service Very Happy

it's fun

Posted: Tue May 27, 2008 11:29 am

In the mid 90's I got my first "puter" 286sx 25mhz. with a 1200 baud modem, I paid 1200 bucks for it used and when I went on line for the first time I was one for 20 hours straight, back then for 19.95 you got 20 free. after my first month my prodigy bill was $351.00 and I went out and bought a new modem 56k but still I only got 14.4 but what a improvment.

Baiting Guru Joined: 31 Jan 2007 Posts: 12237

Click

Posted: Thu May 29, 2008 12:43 am

Ahh the memories, from a Commodore 64 to a new 386 with 8megs of ram ,25 megahertz turbo and a 28.8 modem.How my friends turned green with envy.Loved the sound as the modem hooked up.Funny part was that the old 386 died a very bad death while my wife sold the still working commodore and the external floppydisk reader on Ebay for $150.00.

Posted: Thu May 29, 2008 12:51 am

Ah yes,the Commodore64,with a plug in 300 baud modem.You can literally read that fast.When I finally got a 286 based PC with a 1200 baud modem,I thought what could ever be faster than this!

Master of Master Baiters Joined: 27 Jan 2008 Posts: 589

I loved the comodore 64 compare that with todays games
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMP8OSWGcss

Posted: Thu May 29, 2008 1:45 am

Man,somewhere in the catacombs I think I still have a functional C128-now I gotta see if I can find it!

Posted: Thu May 29, 2008 6:02 am

@ ParaNoid - you aren't alone. I remember using 8" floppies when I used to work in a typing pool many decades ago.

Posted: Thu May 29, 2008 7:46 am

8" floppies .. I have used those at work also for making daily backups of the mail registration system of my employer at the time. It took 12 floppies to make that backup, manual switching to the next one in the set. Total size: about 6 MB. I believe it took about an hour to complete Laughing

.

Started out with the Commodore vic20 (?), followed by the C64 as well .. Actually a C128 in C64 mode. First PC (286 AT) had a state of the art built in 28k8 modem. When ADSL came available here (about 8 years ago) I signed up right away. 256kB/s at first, upgraded by the ISP in several steps to 20Mb today. Besides that I've got a cable broadband connection as a backup now.

omg, I'm getting old .. Wink