What was the internet like in 1989, heres a reproduction you can navigate! - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Beamin
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2021, 08:18:25 pm
content: info.cern.chThat was way before my time by about 5 years. The internet I remember when we first got it through my dads work over a terminal, that I thought was the coolest thing ever because it was like a computer the size of a DVD player and had PCMA slots instead of floppy disks, was much different. I used to use webcrawler and altavista, this was when the internet had too little info on it. A few years later it was in the goldie locks zone where you got what you needed and could look at almost every thing not like now where its page 1 of 134,635,678. Who goes past page two? Seriously is there a bar graph that shows how many people go past page one? If you have a business and you type in a key word and city or zip and youre not on page one you dont exist.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2021, 08:23:53 pm
content: That is about the world wide web, not the internet.I suggest you change the title.

author: JohnnyMalaria
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2021, 09:49:05 pm
content: Quote from: Beamin on February 10, 2021, 08:18:25 pmI sent my first email in 1984

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2021, 09:53:55 pm
content: Quote from: JohnnyMalaria on February 10, 2021, 09:49:05 pmUsing "bang addressing" I presume.

author: JohnnyMalaria
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2021, 10:45:47 pm
content: I remember it was complicated (you had to string addresses together) and the addresses were backwards (e.g., co.ac.bris@fred). I was sending emails to a friend at a different university in the UK using JANET and a Multics mainframe.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2021, 11:04:36 pm
content: You frequently had to have several attempts to get an email to the destination machine. Conversations like "bugger; natovax doesn't know a route to kremvax; let's see if ucbvax has a a clue" were common.

author: S. Petrukhin
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 11, 2021, 11:28:12 am
content: And I think the search queries "XXX" and "porno" have made the Internet popular...

author: VK3DRB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 13, 2021, 01:52:03 am
content: Quote from: tggzzz on February 10, 2021, 08:23:53 pmNo it not, its about the Information Superhighway.

author: VK3DRB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 13, 2021, 01:54:17 am
content: I started using Internet back in 1986 at IBM.

author: ebastler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 13, 2021, 08:55:05 am
content: Quote from: VK3DRB on February 13, 2021, 01:52:03 amNo, I think tggzzz is correct.(a) The CERN website linked in the initial post discusses the birth of the World Wide Web at CERN, i.e. the idea of a "web" of pages which refer to each other by links. It doesnotdiscuss the internet, i.e. the underlying network for information exchange, on which various protocols can be used to exchange information. (Some of which were already in use when Tim Berners-Lee came up with the "web" concept.)(b) I don't think anybody at CERN used the stupid "superhighway" term for either of these concepts.

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 13, 2021, 09:25:34 am
content: Agree with TGzzz, the web isn't the internet though it's become a catch all term and so much of the 'net can be reached from the web.I too date back to having to send emails from a shell, my first was sent to a friend at DEC, I used a comapny called The Direct Connection for shell access to the 'net, prior to that I was using the local dial in port for JANET at Manchester Uni (despite not being a student or even authorised to, I took it as permission to continue when a sysadmin 'chatted' to me, asked me who I was, how I'd got on and told me he'd kick my arse if I broke anything then left me alone to play).Prior to that I was using various BBS around the local area, there were a few which were living rent free on various mainframes in large businesses and run as a hobby by the sysadmins.

author: jhalar
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 13, 2021, 09:48:04 am
content: Back in 1989 I was doing my EE degree at uni. The EE and computer science departments were connected to ACSNet in Australia, no internet yet.Email and file transfers only using the UUCP protocol.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 13, 2021, 11:52:48 am
content: Quote from: jhalar on February 13, 2021, 09:48:04 amFTP and UUCP (and HTTP) are protocols that run on top of TCP/IP, which is the key part of the internet. If you were using any of those then you were using the internet.HTTP was not widely distributed until 1993 or so. The NCSA Mosaic browser was the key enabler.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosaic_(web_browser)

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 13, 2021, 01:17:00 pm
content: Quote from: tggzzz on February 13, 2021, 11:52:48 amFTP and UUCP protocols were used on distributed publicly accessible Unix networks that weren't necessarily ARPAnet connected (but many were later) so if we accept that the modern internet 'began' out of ARPANet then that's contentious

author: themadhippy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 13, 2021, 01:32:21 pm
content: Quoteif you want to see the way technology is going. follow the porn industry.

author: TomS_
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 13, 2021, 01:57:35 pm
content: As a network engineer I also disagree with using "the internet" to refer to any specific use case of it, like the world wide web.But it's also hard to change the general publics perception that they are one in the same. I mean, when is the last time anyone saw an advertisement that said "buy your internet access from us and get access to the world wide web"? That sounds like something you'd probably have seen in the 90s. 😂Sky in the UK are probably the closest to doing this with some of their recent ads where they list a whole bunch of things you can do, but "world wide web" isn't one of them (and is also a bit of a mouthful), probably because "internet" is the generic term to refer to same.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 13, 2021, 02:58:18 pm
content: Quote from: CJay on February 13, 2021, 01:17:00 pmStrictly true, but early purely internal networks ran all sorts of protocols which didn't support UUCP/FTP.By 1989, as in the post I was responding to, the internet was well established and TCP/IP was completely dominant (except for places where politics dictated the x400 family).

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 13, 2021, 02:59:53 pm
content: Quote from: TomS_ on February 13, 2021, 01:57:35 pmOh yes indeed - but we aren't the general public! A techy forum ought to get the basics rightI also dislike people measuring time in Siemens, e.g. mS.

author: TomS_
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 13, 2021, 05:16:06 pm
content: Quote from: tggzzz on February 13, 2021, 02:59:53 pmTechnically correct is the best kind of correct.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 13, 2021, 05:19:27 pm
content: Quote from: TomS_ on February 13, 2021, 05:16:06 pmNot really. Many technically correct things are highly misleading. The best way to lie is by telling the truth in ways that mislead. Nobody can catch you out for telling a lie that way.

author: Labrat101
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 13, 2021, 07:53:14 pm
content: Hi ,Reading this interesting subject reminded me of the Days in the late 80s When I worked for Intel.So I had all the state of art in my office .. DLS unix system that monitored the entire Building .a VAX terminal just loved that Green screen , And a pentium 386 with a 19inch EGA . (16 colour)Running windows 3.11 .. I had Mozilla 0.9 browser . There was no Google .. most of the searchingvia a look up system that Intel had . From the main computer Room that had a Link over to the USAvia cable system & Dish . I was blessed that I worked mainly night shifts . So I spent many hoursexploring via the VAX . all was manual typed in the whole ip's and links .every time you made an error . Syntax ErrorWindows 3. sate of the art but Mozilla was good . well that's is all we had .And to access other worldly systems was not hard . Most systems had ether no passwords orqwerty worked on most .The world was not so paranoid over hackers . etc etc.There was always the BD search long and slow . as to days standards .There was many times I ran though the NASA terminal . Till I got chucked out .

author: EasyGoing1
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2021, 03:14:45 pm
content: Technically there was no Internet in 1989. We have the Internet today because Al Gore introduced legislation into Congress around 1992 I believe. The bill was called "The Information Super Highway Act" - I remember because when I heard my electronics instructor talking about it in class one day, I actually wrote Al Gores office asking about it, because it was always a fantasy of mine to interconnect computers at high speeds. They actually sent me a copy of the bill with a nice letter thanking me for being interested in it. The bill was HUGE ... hundreds of pages ... mostly legalese, but the summary at the beginning I remember some of ... the argument that Al Gore used to justify getting the money to create this new Information Super Highway was something along the lines of "As we did after world war II when we beefed up infrastructure such as building more highways, etc. so that we could more effectively move around the country, we need to once again invest in the "Information Super Highway" so that people can efficiently gain access to information that they now cannot access at all because there is no existing means from which to do so.Now, I can't say, because I don't know, exactly HOW our government brought that into existence, or what that money was actually spent on because the Internet was simply an extension of ARPANET and other networks that only government buildings and higher education facilities had access to. And it seems that the gatekeepers of the newly formed Internet belonged to the telephone companies. So it seems to me that the bill, once it got funded, merely subsidized the cost of bringing all of those existing networks onto a backbone and that each major telco was given a tax-funded point of access to that network. And I'm sure ONE of the big telco companies retained ownership of that backbone or maybe it was divided up amongst them I'm not sure.My first exposure to high-speed Internet was in the early / mid-'90s when I worked as a tech at Edwards AFB in California and some of their computers still had text-based web browsers - Mozilla I believe - And Netscape was the only graphical browser and it ran on Windows 3.11. But right around that time was when the Internet spread like wildfire! Suddenly if you had AOL, you could access the Internet, same with Compuserve ... then soon after that, the phone company was selling internet connections and there was a fast push to get modems working as fast as possible which brought about the 56k modern into the affordable price range ... then Europe brought ISDN which had wider adoption out there than it did here because we went to DSL pretty quickly ... then once cable modems came into their own and the telcos invested heavily into citywide fiber networks ... we now all have the blazing speeds that we have.☺

author: JohnnyMalaria
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2021, 04:08:09 pm
content: "Internet" was introduced in 1974, not by Al Gore.https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc675

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2021, 04:37:25 pm
content: Quote from: EasyGoing1 on February 27, 2021, 03:14:45 pmOh bless your heart, you really are clueless aren't you.

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2021, 05:06:26 pm
content: LMAO some crazy shit in here.Edit: Most of the “core internet companies” came from the private sector and we’re already offering bridging services to things like Usenet or were high risk startups at the time. The whole thing was a bunch of fairly informal peering agreements and that’s pretty much the same now. The US gov managed to do absolutely fuck all other than talk about it and spend money on nothing. In fact there has always been a bit of an “us and them” thing with government involvement as they are meddlesome bastards. As for the telcos, they mostly rented pairs out and got in the way until they realised there was money in it and started buying everything out before they died.As for Europe, at least in the UK, we mostly had dialup here into PIPEX at the start (aforementioned risky start up later merged with UUNET) which was a conscious choice to switch to from Compuserve and university terminal servers (which were on the internet) via SLIP. Dialup lasted until the late 1990s when we got ADSL and locally installed cable (NTL). ISDN was actually fairly low take up other than for commercial voice here. I only ever saw one data installation.The only thing that allowed the internet to grow was semi ubiquitous standardised computing rather than the fragmented mess of the 80s, the rise of packet switching hardware and commercial interest.Al Gore and the US gov were a fart in the wind compared to the above.My first internet usage was sitting on sun3 workstations at university and this was email without bang paths in it. The www wasn’t even around then. And when it did turn up everyone turned their noses up for a bit and carried on using gopher.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2021, 05:20:29 pm
content: Quote from: bd139 on February 27, 2021, 05:06:26 pmYes, quite amusing.If you understand signal integrity, you might also find this worth a chuckle:https://www.eevblog.com/forum/microcontrollers/raspberry-pi-pico/msg3482322/#msg3482322But to see the full context you'll have to chassis back a couple of messages, because that poster doesn't include enough context.

author: Syntax Error
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2021, 05:23:07 pm
content: Forget not Le Médium Interactif par Numérisation d'Information Téléphonique -Minitelhttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minitel( It was an effective WWW long before HTML )

author: JohnnyMalaria
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2021, 05:25:53 pm
content: Quote from: Syntax Error on February 27, 2021, 05:23:07 pmGiven your country flag, I surprised you didn't use Prestel

author: Syntax Error
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2021, 05:42:15 pm
content: Quote from: JohnnyMalaria on February 27, 2021, 05:25:53 pmPrestel was for lazy rich people to do their grocery shopping online. Which was odd because no-one knew what that meant or, why they never needed to go to the shops. Anyway they had housekeepers to do their grocery shopping.One summer school, we used a Commodore Pet, a 300 baud modem and an accoustic coupler, to connect to a GEC computer in the building next door. And that was really-really cool plus, it sounded just like the telex radio signals. We all knew we were standing at the dawn of the new Information Age.

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2021, 05:47:27 pm
content: Quote from: tggzzz on February 27, 2021, 05:20:29 pmThat was a good read. GPT-3?

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2021, 05:56:02 pm
content: Quote from: tggzzz on February 13, 2021, 11:52:48 amNot quite, originally UUCP used a serial connection, i.e. via modem.

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2021, 06:10:02 pm
content: Quote from: Syntax Error on February 27, 2021, 05:42:15 pmPrestel was an essential if you were a Philips dealer/warranty agent, there were a *lot* of other businesses on Prestel, electronics, car dealers, all sorts of gateways and services that weren't necessarily publicly visible.It was massively popular with travel agents too, Thomas Cook springs to mind and I think their IT people just pulled the system in house when Prestel disappeared because they still had a remarkably Prestel like booking system about 5 years ago when I was last involved with them.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2021, 06:26:23 pm
content: Quote from: Syntax Error on February 27, 2021, 05:23:07 pmAlso BTX (Austria and Germany), Teletex (Switzerland), Teledata (Denmark), Videotel (Italy), Viditel (Netherlands) and Ibertex (Spain). All based on the British Prestel.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2021, 07:45:21 pm
content: Quote from: madires on February 27, 2021, 05:56:02 pmYep. Unix to Unix Copy. A standard Unix utility to move files across dialup connections. Nothing real time or interactive like a TCP/IP connection. It simply got files where they needed to be, and did so very well for its time.

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2021, 07:50:39 pm
content: I know a company who was using it for EDI transfers in 2018 still....

author: Syntax Error
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2021, 10:12:35 pm
content: Quote from: CJay on February 27, 2021, 06:10:02 pmThe blocky Teletext style graphics of Prestel defined the era of cathode ray TV. The advent of home PCs in the 1990's connected toBulletin Boards, Newsgroupsand other Compuserve/AoL messenger services, sent these expensive corporate facing services to the scrapheap. But I'm sure somewhere there's a Raspberry Pi running the Prestel stack.Meanwhile last century, my first book on "the internet" had just ONE page dedicated to the World Wide Web; which dismissed the WWW as anichefor document retrieval. In depth, the book covered newsgroups, ftp, e-mail and search protocols calledGopherandFinger. Anyone rememberfingeringin the 90's? I hope not.

author: rfclown
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2021, 10:21:18 pm
content: Quote from: Beamin on February 10, 2021, 08:18:25 pmI remember when altavista came out. It was like WOW. It was so much faster and produced so many more results that the other search sites of the time. Then Google completely changed the game by not only being really fast but somehow figuring out how to (usually) put what you were looking for near the top of the list.

author: JohnnyMalaria
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2021, 11:20:55 pm
content: Quote from: rfclown on February 27, 2021, 10:21:18 pmAltavista was my go-to until it faded away and Google came along. But then came Bing which is my go-to now. I seem to find what I'm looking for quicker and the visual search feature is excellent - much better than Google's. One reason is that you can paste an image from the clipboard. Google requires a URL or you upload an image.

author: JohnnyMalaria
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2021, 11:25:19 pm
content: Quote from: Syntax Error on February 27, 2021, 10:12:35 pmI used to spend ages going through CEEFAX (Oracle was shit). However, if you tried to view CEEFAX pages from a video recording, it didn't always work out so well. Seeing CEEFUX written on the TV was amusing to my teen friends and me.

author: Tom45
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2021, 11:33:49 pm
content: Quote from: rfclown on February 27, 2021, 10:21:18 pmThat reminds me of a funny story from the early days of Alta Vista.I heard a news item about Kate Moss on the radio but I'd never heard of her. So since Alta Vista had just come out I thought that would be a good way to find out who she was. One of my first uses of Alta Vista.Well there were a huge number of hits where I learned all about her.There were even nude photos of her. That made me stop and think. I'd better be careful of who I might search for. A search for someone such as Rosie O'Donnell, or Rush Limbaugh could be a bad move.

author: MIS42N
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2021, 12:19:43 am
content: I think the making of the Internet (and ARPAnet before it) was the development of TCP/IP as a routable protocol. There were plenty of other protocols around, Novell Netware, DECnet, whatever MS-DOS used, IBM SNA etc. But in many cases to get from one network to another was messy, using gateways. I think the other protocols were developed with local area networks in mind, and thought a wide area network would be a tack on, using point to point protocols such as X.25. TCP/IP was routable from day one.Before what we now call the internet (being the world wide network) came into being, networks were described as intranet (basically what we now call a LAN) and internet just meant two or more intranets connected together, usually by gateways. Then people distinguished between THE Internet and a private internet by capitalising it. Nowadays these usages are obsolescent (although I notice I unconsciously used it above). Probably because there are few truly private networks, they all have paths to the world's internet.I agree with people who say the title is misleading. 1989 saw the birth of the www, the internet was relatively mature and available at many universities in Australia well before.My first home use of the internet was sometime in the 90s using dial up. I was connected and awaiting a 56Kb modem but had a 1200 baud modem so made the first connection with that. I think it took around a minute to download some pages, but it was magic.

author: helius
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2021, 01:12:35 am
content: The Internet is literally a "network of networks", bridging between (locally) autonomous networks operated by different local authorities. That was the big idea in the late 1960s when it was first designed (as the ARPAnet), and the reason it continued to grow from then until now. The ARPAnet didn't use TCP/IP, since it didn't exist at the time. It used an older protocol called NCP (Network Control Protocol) based on a single type of packet router called an IMP. The IMP was a ruggedised Honeywell DDP516, that was connected to local computers at each site. Packets were addressed to each port on each IMP, which meant they were addressed to the computer attached to that port. The day when NCP was to be turned off and TCP/IP turned on across the entire ARPAnet was January 1, 1983. With the dependence on IMPs severed, the IP network router market began to grow with companies like Proteon, 3Com, and most significantly Cisco starting at around the same time. The historic government-funded ARPAnet was rechristened the NSFnet, and many corporate networks joined with IP gateways. The DNS architecture replaced the need to keep HOSTS files at each site updated, and domain name authorities began assigning globally visible names, with the first .COM in 1985.Like many Unix features, UUCP was a discount version of this communication scheme. It also had support for offline message queueing and forwarding, which made it perfect for organizations without the cash to connect directly to the ARPAnet/Internet. The "bang paths" were required because messages could be sent to sites without a permanent Internet connection, but that were reachable via dial-up UUCP connections. The ARPAnet/Internet itself did not rely on message forwarding through a chain of hosts, since that function was performed by the network routers. (Let's not get into IP Source Routing.)Today that world seems very far away. I wonder how hard it would be to create an actual "historic arpanet"? You would first need several dozen mainframe computers of all different types, plus terminals and IMPs... Traffic could be channeled through a VPN tunnel.

author: EasyGoing1
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2021, 01:22:43 am
content: Quote from: JohnnyMalaria on February 27, 2021, 04:08:09 pmIm sorry, but what you just linked was a description of the TCP PROTOCOL ... NOT the Internet!The analogy would be the same as comparing a car to the highways that get all the cars to where they want to go. TCP is a language that can use the Internet ... it can also use a local computer running a program talking to itself on 127.0.0.1. But TCP is NOT the Internet ... that's cute though ...No, Al Gore convinced Congress and the president back in 1992 to invest serious capital to take the existing ARPANET, USENET, and the myraid of other not yet fully interconnected internetworks and got them all connected on a national and global backbone. The title "THE INTERNET" did NOT exist before the US funded that bill and completed the work which brought all of those networks to the home user at a fair price.Like I said, I WAS THERE, I HAD THE BILL IN MY HANDS AND I READ IT ... I remember what happened...If you think I'm lying to you ... there's always Google ... PLEASE fact-check me IM BEGGING YOU!:-)

author: EasyGoing1
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2021, 01:26:10 am
content: Quote from: CJay on February 27, 2021, 04:37:25 pmDon't be a smart ass ... I was THERE ... I REMEMBER what happened ... how old are you anyways? And don't you know it's bad form to accuse someone of being wrong without actually demonstrating how they are wrong and being very specific about it? You must be a liberal cause they tend to think that just telling someone that they're wrong makes them wrong ... but life doesn't work that way because facts and evidence actually define reality. So go find your facts and evidence then come back and tell everyone how I'm wrong.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2021, 01:43:21 am
content: Quote from: EasyGoing1 on February 28, 2021, 01:26:10 amIt seems you weren't paying much attention. Its not a coincidence that the availability of cheap 14.4kbps and 28.8kbps modems happened just as the internet really took off. Its WHY the internet took off. Governments did a couple of important things, like oversee the setup of a consistent global DNS heirarchy, and improve the IP number allocation scheme. However, it was time for things to explode, whatever governments did, because the PCs and comms equipment of the day had finally made it a feasible mass market system.

author: EasyGoing1
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2021, 01:44:37 am
content: Quote from: bd139 on February 27, 2021, 05:06:26 pmQuote from: CJay on February 27, 2021, 04:37:25 pmQuote from: JohnnyMalaria on February 27, 2021, 04:08:09 pmQuote from: helius on February 28, 2021, 01:12:35 amIn my first post on this topic, I prefaced my statements about where the government funding was spent on in Al Gores bill. I said I didn't know exactly where the money went but I made an educated guess. I was wong ... my guess was wrong ... so sue me...Here are the actual facts surrounding Al Gores involvement with bringing the Internet into the public main stream. He was an active proponent of broadly deployed high speed network connections from as far back as the early 1970s in his political career and he was the first member of Congress who actually comprehended the potential in an Interconnected global set of networks being accessible to the general public.This is a great summary of what he did.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore_and_information_technologyNow keep in mind I am no fan of Al Gore. In fact, I think he should be in prison for what he tried to do when he made that movie, "An Inconvenient Truth" ... but sadly as it seems to be true, politicians never have to answer for their crimes even when the evidence is irrefutable. But his involvement and active support of bringing the Internet to the public is a simple matter of fact and is well documented.Mike

author: EasyGoing1
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2021, 01:51:08 am
content: Quote from: coppice on February 28, 2021, 01:43:21 amThe government has never owned IANA ... and they MIGHT have been involved in its establishment, though I doubt it because it works perfectly. The government rarely does things with efficiency nor in a streamlined fashion and IANA works so well in fact, that we never even hear about them. They are the gatekeepers of every top-level domain and they dole out the IP addresses to ISPs and they have filled that role exceptionally well ever since their inception.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2021, 02:00:00 am
content: Quote from: EasyGoing1 on February 28, 2021, 01:51:08 amSo, the government can't do anything good, but Al Gore, and the funding he obtained, was crucially important in kick starting the Internet? Do you see a little inconsistency in that argument?

author: EasyGoing1
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2021, 02:02:18 am
content: Quote from: coppice on February 28, 2021, 01:43:21 amAnd wrong again, modems were already cheap LONG before the Internet took off in the public and long before we could ever purchase an Internet connection. Compuserve and AOL were already well-established services and they often gave modems away at computer shows and what have you just to get people to use their service.What was NOT popular before the Internet boom happened was 56k modems ... and they didn't start showing up on the shelves of computer stores and other department stores until the Internet boom started ... booming. And it might actually be that one had no effect on the other where it's probably very likely that 56k modems would have exploded out into the retail market when they did regardless of the onset of the Internet. All I know is that 56k modems had an engineering issue that needed to be solved before they could produce them for the public ... something about maxing out the capabilities of an analog phone line and some issues that introduced into the hardware that had to be solved, because we had 28.8 modems available for a few years before 56k finally came out. But even they were short lived once DSL hit the scene.

author: EasyGoing1
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2021, 02:05:11 am
content: Quote from: coppice on February 28, 2021, 02:00:00 amNot at all ... government funded legislation usually gets awarded to private contractors anyway ... my point earlier was that I think it is highly unlikely that the government had anything to do with the design of the IANA organization because it works TOO WELL ... most likely it was created by savvy engineers and overseen by IEEE standards. BUT THAT IS MY GUESS ... I don't actually know how IANA got started and after posting this message, I'm going to find out.

author: MIS42N
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2021, 02:11:40 am
content: Al Gore did a lot to make the internet available to more people. But it was a growing thing. He didn't create it.Here's a line from the CERN website "CERN opened its first external connections to the internet after a "big bang" in January 1989 to change all IP addresses to official ones." So the idea of global IP addresses was already in place in 1989. TCP/IP was a thing. CERN were connecting to a global network.Internet pioneers Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn said " ... the Internet, as we know it today, was not deployed until 1983".I'm sure different people could come up with different events that could be considered "the birth of the internet" but I think it ends up being an unwinnable discussion.

author: EasyGoing1
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2021, 02:17:03 am
content: Quote from: coppice on February 28, 2021, 02:00:00 amSo it turns out that IANA started out of necessity in the early 70's by a man named Jon Postel who worked at the University of California in Los Angeles and it was used to rope in the resources on the ARPANET. It evolved from there. Seems that the only US government connection to IANA was via funding for about a decade but there was apparently no managerial enforcement being made as a condition of that funding....******** snip ********IANA was established informally as a reference to various technical functions for the ARPANET, that Jon Postel and Joyce K. Reynolds performed at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and at the University of Southern California's Information Sciences Institute. On March 26, 1972, Vint Cerf and Jon Postel at UCLA called for establishing a socket number catalog in RFC 322. Network administrators were asked to submit a note or place a phone call, "describing the function and socket numbers of network service programs at each HOST". This catalog was subsequently published as RFC 433 in December 1972. In it Postel first proposed a registry of assignments of port numbers to network services, calling himself the czar of socket numbers.The first reference to the name "IANA" in the RFC series is in RFC 1083, published in December, 1988 by Postel at USC-ISI, referring to Joyce K. Reynolds as the IANA contact. However the function, and the term, was well established long before that; RFC 1174 says that "Throughout its entire history, the Internet system has employed a central Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA)..."In 1995, the National Science Foundation authorized Network Solutions to assess domain name registrants a $50 fee per year for the first two years, 30 percent of which was to be deposited in the Intellectual Infrastructure Fund (IIF), a fund to be used for the preservation and enhancement of the intellectual infrastructure of the Internet. There was widespread dissatisfaction with this concentration of power (and money) in one company, and people looked to IANA for a solution. Postel wrote up a draft on IANA and the creation of new top level domains. He was trying to institutionalize IANA. In retrospect, this would have been valuable, since he unexpectedly died about two years later.In January 1998, Postel was threatened by US Presidential science advisor Ira Magaziner with the statement "You'll never work on the Internet again" after Postel collaborated with root server operators to test using a root server other than Network Solutions' "A" root to act as the authority over the root zone. Demonstrating that control of the root was from the IANA rather than from Network Solutions would have clarified IANA's authority to create new top-level domains as a step to resolving the DNS Wars, but he ended his effort after Magaziner's threat, and died not long after.Jon Postel managed the IANA function from its inception on the ARPANET until his death in October 1998. By his almost 30 years of "selfless service", Postel created his de facto authority to manage key parts of the Internet infrastructure. After his death, Joyce K. Reynolds, who had worked with him for many years, managed the transition of the IANA function to ICANN.Starting in 1988, IANA was funded by the U.S. government under a contract between the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Information Sciences Institute. This contract expired in April 1997, but was extended to preserve IANA.On December 24, 1998, USC entered into a transition agreement with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers ICANN, transferring the IANA project to ICANN, effective January 1, 1999, thus making IANA an operating unit of ICANN.Here is the link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Assigned_Numbers_Authority

author: EasyGoing1
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2021, 02:27:10 am
content: Quote from: MIS42N on February 28, 2021, 02:11:40 amFOR THE RECORD, I NEVER SAID AL GORE CREATED THE INTERNET... and I thought he was a total dumbass when he made that statement some years ago. He was merely a Senator who understood the potential of the Internet and he worked tirelessly to convince the rest of Congress to get on the bandwagon and use the publics money to bring the technology into their homes.But yeah he was a dumbass for saying he invented the Internet. I want to believe he made that statement as a way of helping the general public understand that without his efforts, we would not have the Internet in quite the same way that we do nor would we have had as soon as we did ... so in that effort to make it simple, he just said "I invented the Internet" when really what he invented was the various legislations and committees that were devoted to the task of bringing the technology into our homes.

author: EasyGoing1
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2021, 02:36:54 am
content: If anyone is curious about technology and its history ... look for a documentary called something like, "The history of international fiber optics" or something to that effect. It was a documentary made a few years ago I believe and it talks about - in some nice detail, our first efforts to lay wire across the ocean back when the telegraph was invented. The engineering challenges that went with doing that ... and how after the first connection was made between New York and London, I think it failed within the first week and they discovered a flaw in their methods of running it in the ocean as well as flaws in the outer layers in the cable. So they had to start over from scratch and run a brand new cable half way around the world, which was a success .. and the cost to the consumer for sending a message or making a phone call to London back in the pre-1920s was close to $5 or $6 dollars per message/phone call which would be about $150 in today's dollars.It's pretty fascinating stuff.And man I'm starting to sound like a geek version of Cliff Claven over here ... if anyone remembers the guy who played the postal worker on the show "Cheers" ... lol

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2021, 09:00:29 am
content: Quote from: helius on February 28, 2021, 01:12:35 am... in the beginning. Later on bang addressing faded away when the modern email addresses arrived. In 1993 our local UUCP group (all hosts with dial-up connections, one gateway to the internet) didn't use bang addressing at all. My system was an intermediate host feeding a few other hosts, since the gateway (located at an university) was a local phone call for me, long distance for the others.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2021, 09:22:50 am
content: Quote from: EasyGoing1 on February 27, 2021, 03:14:45 pmOver here around mid 90s ISDN was common and 33.6k modems affordable. The very first 56k modem arrived a little bit later.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2021, 09:32:27 am
content: Quote from: EasyGoing1 on February 28, 2021, 01:26:10 amYou remember incorrectly. You make ad hominem statements based on imagined politics that are irrelevant to the technical subject.Highly unimpressive.BTW, I was there. I missed the 1984 kremvax hoax, but was using the internet before going to do research on the internet from 1987 onwards.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2021, 09:38:26 am
content: Quote from: EasyGoing1 on February 28, 2021, 02:36:54 amBetter still, read the books by Arthur C Clarke, the person that described comsats in 1945. "Voice Across the Sea" (1958) and its sequel "How the World Was One" (1992).Yes, I have both, and read the first in the late 70s.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2021, 09:56:01 am
content: Quote from: EasyGoing1 on February 28, 2021, 02:02:18 amTo make 56k modems work reliable the ISP's side had to be ISDN and the user's POTS line had be digitized as near as possible towards the user. The US had an additional disadvantage because their digital lines are based on 7 bit PCM (EU: 8 bits). Later on the US came up with an extended frame format which allows nearly 8 bits, i.e. every few frames the 8th bit is dropped.

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2021, 09:58:02 am
content: Quote from: EasyGoing1 on February 28, 2021, 01:26:10 amOlder than you, with a better memory than you and you literally admit you were guessing and got it wrong two posts after that one.I'm done with you, you're trolling.

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2021, 10:10:21 am
content: EasyGoing1: slinging insults, particularly political oriented one, after a retraction of a completely cocked up initial entry to this thread is not appreciated on the Internet. It bites. You’d know that if you’ve been on Usenet and the Internet as long as a lot of people commenting.Anyway I don’t think I’ve seen a single post relating to the OSI model being referenced which is probably the most complete definition of internetworking.I’d also like to point out that while an EE forum some of us ended up in different industries wrangling this stuff professionally.Anyway back on topic, included is a nice picture of the first web server from my photo library. Now at the science museum here. From CERN:

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2021, 10:18:30 am
content: Quote from: bd139 on February 28, 2021, 10:10:21 amI think perhaps I have a very similar picture in my library from a visit to the Science Museum, I was somewhat disappointed nobody had the foresight to include a flashing LED on top.

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2021, 10:24:48 am
content: Yes and good reference

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2021, 10:43:59 am
content: Quote from: bd139 on February 28, 2021, 10:24:48 amSomething only the Elders of the Internet would get.I'm trying to dig up references to my first 'paid for' ISP, it was a dialup outfit based in Blackheath called The Direct Connection, they seem to have almost entirely vanished from the written history but they were around in the days of the Amiga 500 and offered a dialup shell connection but only via a long distance call.Then came Demon, KA9Q and Turnpike...

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2021, 11:07:21 am
content: Quote from: bd139 on February 28, 2021, 10:10:21 amThe word "trolling" has been invoked earlier in the thread!QuoteI well remember when it wasn't certain whether OSI/X.400 or TCP/IP would become dominant. I never paid much attention to OSI, but couple of my colleagues wrote a textbook published by Prentice Hall in 1992. That was just as OSI was becoming irrelevant and the year before the WWW became widely known.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2021, 11:40:01 am
content: Yep, IETF and OSI have a very special relationship.

author: Syntax Error
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2021, 11:48:09 am
content: I'm sure you old skool users remember a time when every computer magazine came with a CD for AOL? I certainly collected a few as 'coasters'. No doubt there's a million AOL CDs in landfill awaiting archeological discovery.In the early 90s, those CDs were often floppy discs for Compuserve services. Today we forget the name Compuserve, but established in 1969, CS helped pave the way for the internet revolution. Any CS users here?https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CompuServe

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2021, 11:52:56 am
content: They were great for keeping the birds off my tomatoes

author: Syntax Error
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2021, 12:05:55 pm
content: Quote from: bd139 on February 28, 2021, 11:52:56 amThat is so 2001. I remember drilling holes in magazine CDs to make Xmas decorations. UpcyclingAnother geeky use was to turn dead CDs into spectrometers. Energy saver light bulbs made amazing coloured blobs. DIY Homemade Spectrometer:https://www.madaboutscience.com.au/shop/science-extra/post/homemade-spectrometer

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2021, 12:10:33 pm
content: That's very neat. Never seen that one before. Unfortunately I don't actually have a single CD in my house now so can't easily play with that. How times have changed.

author: nali
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2021, 12:17:59 pm
content: Quote from: Syntax Error on February 28, 2021, 11:48:09 amYep, CS was my first "real" access to the 'net as we know it. Before that it was dial-up BBSs.Also somewhere I guess circa 1990 AMPRNet on 2m. Now that was S-L-O-W with throughputs inbytesper sec

author: ebastler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2021, 12:37:01 pm
content: @EasyGoing1, your username stands in marked contrast to your style of writing and arguing. Unless it is your goal to provoke others, may I suggest that you dial things back a bit. Less caps and boldface, less opinionated, more easygoing... Otherwise I don't see your account lasting long around here.Edit: Looks like you (or a mod?) just cleaned up some of the more argumentative posts. Great!

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2021, 01:17:06 pm
content: Quote from: EasyGoing1 on February 28, 2021, 02:02:18 amLucky you! Because of local regulations our modems came with some special features, like re-dial limits, and required an approval which made the modems two or three times more expensive than the ones imported from the US. If you had an import modem without approval you could be fined and the modem was confiscated. After the privatization of Deutsche Bundespost things improved.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2021, 02:00:54 pm
content: Quote from: EasyGoing1 on February 28, 2021, 02:02:18 amIn 1990 a 2400bps modem was fairly cheap, but a 14.4kbps modem capable of doing something more meaningful with the internet was well over $1k. By 1994 it was more like $200.Quote from: EasyGoing1 on February 28, 2021, 02:02:18 amThe common kinds of 56k modems (V.90 and V.92) are asymmetric. They were developed because the Internet was becoming hugely successful, and it was feasible to squeeze a bit more speed from existing telephone lines if you accepted asymmetric speeds, which is OK for most consumer's internet usage. Prior, slower, modems were all designed to work peer to peer, and were used for all sorts of communications which needed symmetric behaviour. The huge success of dial up internet with 14.4kbps (V.32bis) and 28.8kbps (V.34) modems spurred the development of anything that would get people faster access. One strand of this was ADSL, which required that the telcos install a broad infrastructure, which took time to develop. The other strand was the development of a stopgap that would let people approach the maximum they could get from the existing telephony infrastructure, which was 64kbps. The result was V.90, and later V.92, which were limited to a slightly slower rate of 56kbps for practical reasons. These require one type of modem in the home, connected to an ordinary analogue telephone line. They needed a completely different kind of modem in the ISP, connected to a digital telephone line (usually a E1 ot T1). The connection was up to 56kbps down, but never more then 33kbps up. These things didn't appear in stores until dial up Internet access was already popular, because their development was a RESPONSE to that popularity. Also, nobody really knew how to develop them earlier on. In the late 80s and early 90s our understanding of digital comms made a lot of progress, and costs plummeted.

author: rsjsouza
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2021, 02:03:12 pm
content: I am not really a pioneer of Internet/WWW/whatever-you-want-to-call-it, but we started talking to other computers since 1992-93 via local BBSs, although the price of the call was prohibitive if connected for too long (in Brasil, a new charge was made every 4 minutes for local calls). We were one of the very early adopters of 28.8kbps modems at the time (very expensive), but no BBS had them yet, as digital lines started just a couple of years earlier but adoption was very slow and expensive (that's government owned telco for you) - 9.6k and 14.4k were the norm. The earliest access we had to email was through our BBS - a slow and complicated relay system between a real email and a BBS messaging system. A full send-reply-receive took two days.At the university, my brother (3yr my senior) had access to "electronic mail" via bitnet since 1990 but, as he is not technologically inclined, didn't make much of it. When I got to the university in 91, this access was still very restricted and during my university years we had no access at all, although we started accessing "the internet" in 1994 at home using Trumpet Winsock and NCSA Mosaic - Netscape only came a bit later to us. I missed the Gopher phase, but FTP was still very much alive. Throughout the university years, I became well versed in SLIP and PPP by setting up and troubleshooting pretty much all my friends' Windows computers. Linux only came to me in 96 but by then I was going through the crazy train of the end of undergrad and would only pick up Unix seriously a few years later in my master'sA pretty typical scenario in the 1990s for someone not professionally working in the area.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2021, 02:18:42 pm
content: Quote from: rsjsouza on February 28, 2021, 02:03:12 pmThe heyday of BBSes was the 1980s for most people in developed countries, using modems from 300bps to 2400bps. although it was often held back by restrictive practices on the sale and use of modems in many countries.Call costs were a huge factor in the development of online services. Some of the earliest systems, like Prestel in the UK and Minitel in France, were actually a response by telcos to the question "how can we get subscribers to rack up more per minute local call charges?". In the early 90s, when the Internet started to move, it moved a lot faster in places with free local calls than it did in places with substantial per minute charges. Even in the early days of ADSL, many telcos tried charging for access time, although they couldn't sustain that model for long.

author: Syntax Error
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2021, 03:42:54 pm
content: Indeed call costs were high in the mid 90s, but a lot cheaper than at the end of the 80s. I did once use a BBS with my C64, but that was at an 'international' rate call. And the games were still rubbish.Here in the UK by 95, 'internet over POTS' (modem) was around one penny a minute. Quite a lot over a month for just 'surfing' (a very 90s in-term) over a slow link, but we needed something cool for our Windows 95 computers to do. I moved from AOL to Virgin Net as they had user discounts on Virgin Megastore stuff. I upgraded to a V92 internal modem, which was SO much faster!Before a 'surfing' session, I trailed a long phone extension lead down the halway and stairs to the phone point. Invariably someone would make this a trip hazard causing a loss of connection. Today people get anxious if their wifi signal is only streaming at 150Mbs. FTTP, VDSL, Wifi and 5G, you have never had it so good.EEVBlog Kids, an internet joy that you will never know, is this conversation:"Dad, how long are you going to use the phone?""Why son?""Because I want to connect to the internet.""It's my phone, so I will use it for as long as I s****g want!"-or-"Get off the internet, your dad needs to use HIS telephone!"Happy days.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2021, 04:28:30 pm
content: The good old times.Back then we started the dial-in service with an Ascend MAX 2000 (1 or 2 PRIs) and soon afterwards we had several racks full of MAX TNTs (16 PRIs and tons of k56flex cards) supporting MPPP (Multilink PPP) across the chassis.

author: rsjsouza
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2021, 08:26:45 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on February 28, 2021, 02:18:42 pmYes, you are correct; unfortunately for us in Brasil there was a severe import tax of finished goods (150 or 200%,ifyou were somehow authorized to bring anything) and therefore the restrictions were even worse. Of course, the telcos were state-owned and therefore restrictions were probably way worse.The other day I got a Hayes 300bps smartmodem and, while studing its history to make a video on my channel, I was somewhat surprised to see how early it started to be sold (1981).Perhaps to try and bring the country to the modern age, telcos started a teletext/videotext pilot program in the mid 80s that was quite promising, although it never took off for the general public - perhaps they had some trial runs here and there but it never gained mass adoption. Perhaps it was due to the beginning of the hyperinflation that plagued us for almost a decade ("the lost decade" as we usually say). Terrible times.Quote from: Syntax Error on February 28, 2021, 03:42:54 pmYes, call costs became quite high, to which a V.90 or V.92 were a life saviour. Still, the phone company started to promote lower tariffs between midnight and 6AM and they found out the lines started to operate at capacity at these hours and bumped the charges.Quote from: Syntax Error on February 28, 2021, 03:42:54 pmNot only that, but invariably someone would pick up the line, to which the post mortem message was:$%@#~*LOST CARRIER

author: helius
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2021, 11:47:41 pm
content: Quote from: madires on February 28, 2021, 01:17:06 pmWas this the period when23took place?It's interesting how divergent different national telephone systems were and are. At a certain time, workstations with built-in ISDN ports had bright yellow warning stickers threatening dire consequences for connecting in Australia. Different countries developed incompatible modular jack designs. And the different sound of ring tones and busy tones.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2021, 12:59:38 am
content: Quote from: helius on February 28, 2021, 11:47:41 pmThe only really divergent behaviour was in the US. Most countries had comparable rules to Germany, holding back the development of new services.

author: helius
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2021, 02:57:27 am
content: Quote from: coppice on February 28, 2021, 02:00:54 pmNot quite. The Bell 202 was a 1200 bps asynchronous modem with a reverse channel of 75 bps (sometimes 150 bps). This was also the scheme of the ITU's V.23. Later, the US Robotics' HST and Telebit's PEP also used asymmetric channels. This was all before 1990.

author: MIS42N
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2021, 09:12:30 am
content: Quote from: helius on March 01, 2021, 02:57:27 amI encountered a few 1200/75 modems, they could be configured to be peer to peer. Messy 25 pin connectors with a primary channel and a secondary channel each with a full complement of control signals. The 75 baud channel was designed to handle typed input, so didn't need to be faster. I "butchered" the Commodore 64 operating system to handle a 1200/75 modem thinking it was a 300/300. Worked well.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2021, 10:16:39 am
content: Quote from: helius on February 28, 2021, 11:47:41 pmYes, 23 was second half of the 80s and the privatization of Deutsche Bundespost happened in 1995.Quote from: helius on February 28, 2021, 11:47:41 pm... also features, e.g. MWI, or line types, like T1 and E1, and so on.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2021, 11:29:34 am
content: Quote from: coppice on March 01, 2021, 12:59:38 amAt that time telephone services were operated by government agencies in most EU countries. They had tons of regulations and were afraid that non-compliant modems could harm the network. Despite being agencies some were quite progressive, for example you could do online banking with BTX in the 80s. And don't forget ISDN, which was much more than just a digital telephone service. That reminds me of the ISDN's short message service. After the introduction of ISDN the standard tariff included a free short message service. Some students designed a terminal adapter to use the short message service as low speed serial connection. It didn't take long until the short message service became a paid option.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2021, 11:55:53 am
content: Quote from: helius on March 01, 2021, 02:57:27 amIn the early 90ies the two best modems were the USR Courier HST and ZyXEL U-1486 which many BBSes and early ISPs used. I can't recall USR's HST protocol being asymmetrical. A friend had the Courier HST and I think the transfer rates were the same in both directions. ZyXEL's proprietary high speed protocols were symmetrical. BTW, we did run Amiga based BBSes back then.

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2021, 12:30:29 pm
content: It's been a *long* time since I dealt with them, US Robotics Courier HST mode was asymmetric but I seem to remember if was capable of flipping the channels so the side with most data would get the fast one.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2021, 12:42:27 pm
content: Quote from: helius on March 01, 2021, 02:57:27 amBell 202 and V.23 were actually intended as single directional 1200bps modems, with a reverse control ability. I think Bell 202 was originally specified with only a 5bps back channel, too slow even for a slow typist. The main used of V.23 turned out to be for information services, like Prestel and Minitel, where the 75bps back channel was adequate for sending async serial data from slow typists.The Telebit Trailblazer PEP (essentially OFDM) modems were designed to be adaptive to both line conditions and data flows. They offered 512 carriers, only using the ones that worked well after line probing on the particular phone line. They allocated the usable carriers dynamically to one or other direction, as the data flow demanded. So they offered symmetric capabilities, but at any instant offered asymmetric flows.I'm not familiar with the details of the HST modems. I thought they were dynamically symmetric, in a similar way to the Trailblazer modems.

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2021, 01:36:32 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on March 01, 2021, 12:42:27 pmMemory does serve, page 211 of thishttps://support.usr.com/support/0955/0955-files/0955-unkg-Manual.pdfsays the modem with less data was dynamically allocated a 450BPS back channel

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2021, 02:21:57 pm
content: That would have sucked very badly with the Hydra transfer protocol when polling FTS networks. Still got my old U-1496EG+.

author: EasyGoing1
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2021, 02:25:56 pm
content: Quote from: tggzzz on February 28, 2021, 09:32:27 amYou were using the Internet in 1987? Which country / state did you live in? Who was your Internet Service Provider? Because if it was AOL or Compuserve or a similar type of service, that was NOT "The Internet" - that would have been a closed network that offered resources that you used to do research. THE INTERNET - meaning the ability to purchase a connection that connected you directly into the Internet itself was not possible for home users (at least in the United States) until the low / mid 1990s.

author: EasyGoing1
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2021, 02:30:18 pm
content: Quote from: CJay on February 28, 2021, 09:58:02 amYou're the one accusing me of being wrong without citing anything specific that I said while explaining why what I said was wrong ... and *I'm* trolling?You're a joke! You offer nothing of value or substance to the conversation other than baseless accusations.

author: JohnnyMalaria
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2021, 02:33:29 pm
content: Quote from: EasyGoing1 on March 01, 2021, 02:25:56 pmYup. University of Bristol via JANET.

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2021, 02:58:41 pm
content: Quote from: madires on March 01, 2021, 02:21:57 pmI rather regret chucking out most of the old modems I had but they're of very little or no practical use these days, about the only thing I have needed an analogue modem for in the past 5 years or so was to send a fax to a government department and I managed that with an all in one printer.I did once upon a time have the V22 BIS negotiation tones as a text message alert but even that has gone by the wayside now, very few people I work with have ever used dialup.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2021, 03:21:43 pm
content: Quote from: JohnnyMalaria on March 01, 2021, 02:33:29 pmBe careful with the old university/research networks. Many weren't connected to ARPANET and X.25 was commonly used. JANET started with X.25 and switched to IP in 1991. The first CSNET node in Germany was installed at university Karlsruhe in 1984, while the first IP link to NYSERNet came in 1989. The CS faculty of university Karlsruhe founded also one of the first ISPs (XLINK).

author: Syntax Error
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2021, 03:28:31 pm
content: Quote from: madires on March 01, 2021, 11:29:34 amYou know, I almost had. In the 80s and 90s, it was at the backbone of B2B communication. Having a leased line meant your business had arrived. Especially if there was a video conferencing suite to justify the crippling bandwidth tarrif. As a roaming tech support guy, I would often be stressing over some client comms issue, only to find their ISDN was out. Not my problemo, call Telecom.I recall some businesses had dedicated "Megastream" lines, but I'm not sure if this was ISDN in a different wrapper?For anyone playing @home: ISDNhttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_Services_Digital_NetworkRemarkably, you can still find ISDN hardware listed on ebay. So someone must still be making calls to the last century?

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2021, 03:29:29 pm
content: Quote from: madires on March 01, 2021, 03:21:43 pmI think a lot of people confuse the old CCITT/ITU based academic networks with the modern Internet. In some ways we might eventually be moving back there. IPv6 could be considered to have more in common with the CCITT protocols than with IPv4.

author: EasyGoing1
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2021, 03:29:45 pm
content: Quote from: bd139 on February 28, 2021, 10:10:21 amThe OSI model is alsonot the definition of "The Internet" nor is it the definition of "internetworking". The OSI model is the model of ALL computer networking and it describes what networking actually is inside any hardware that can network.Tha physical layer is most known by people as the Ethernet port and the patch cables. In Wifi, it would be like BNC connectors and antennasDatalink layer is the layer that we can observe when we see the connection light on those ethernet jacks. In Wifi, it's most often displayed with software - some indication that you're physically connected to the network which would only happen if you accurately provided the security credentials. Having layers 1 and 2 working does not mean you can send and receive packets yet from your software...The Newtork Layer would be best understood as that function within the hardware the provides the means of maintaining a connection from one node to another (one ethernet port to the ethernet port that it is directly connected to) - in Wifi this is virtualized, and it would include the MAC address of the port in that function.Tht Tansport layer is the function within the hardware the defines the structure of the packets that traverse between nodes. It would also include error correction methods etc.The session layer now begins to reach up beyond the hardware and is a function of the operating system at a low level. It is defined within the protocols being used. TCP/IP and UDP for example would have distinct and different ways of implementing the session layer.Then there are the presentation and application layers, the presentation layer being the layer that brings packets to your applications like Chrome etc. and the Application layer being your apps themselves.The OSI model describes what is happening inside a computer, or a router, or a switch or any other device that can operate on a network.THE INTERNET happens in layer 3 mostly because layer 3 is where ROUTING between different networks happen.But by no means, is the OSI model a definition of the Internet. The Internet exists within the context of the OSI model as does ANY network.But the Internet is literally defined as the Inter-connection of otherwise disconnected, independent networks.So if say you have three companies and they each exist in three different buildings and those buildings are geographically dispersed either throughout a city where their distance apart is such that they don't exist on the same property. When you CONNECT those three buildings so that any of the buildings can talk to any of the other buildings, you have now created an INTER-NETWORK ( a network of networks) and "THE INTERNET" is the label given to the Inter-network that exists that connects countless other networks which exist all over the planet. And we access the Internet via layer 3 of the OSI model which is provided to us by an Internet Service Provide by some means such as an Ethernet handoff or a fiber handoff maybe through a multiplexer, or a modulator of some kind ... cable modems etc. Some ISPs sell Internet through WiFi access points over large distances often called terrestrial networks or "last mile" networks, and there is also Satellite connections into the Internet, even point-to-point laser is one means of offering a connection into an internetwork or the Internet ...But don't be confused, the OSI model is NOT a definition of "The Internet" just as TCP is also not a definition of "The Internet" ... however, the Internet exists within the OSI model and it does implement TCP as one protocol that computers use to communicate with each other on the Internet. UDP is also used often and operates independently of TCP and is a much more efficient protocol for things like video broadcasting and even large data transfers when it isn't necessary to use the heavy error correction that is built into TCP (making UDP much faster because of lower overhead in the protocol).Other protocols such as FTP and SFTP and HTTP actually operate on top of TCP and they rely on TCP for packet delivery. They simply "add" to TCP: for example, FTP requires a connection stream to be established after a handshaking process has transpired with success and that process requires a username and password, where as HTTP and HTTPS are just overlays on TCP that are intended to transfer hypertext, HTTPS adding the requirement that the hypertext be encrypted and signed by a trusted certificate authority etc. Those would be presentation layer functions when thinking in terms of OSI model, and there are a lot of them out there... some of the more frequently used presentation layer protocols would include SSH, SFTP, Telnet etc.But remember ... all of those protocols can be used within the confines of a single computer and do NOT require a computer to be connected to an actual network for them to be used. For example, if you installed a web server on your computer, then used Google Chrome on that same computer to pull up a web page that your computers webserver was offering, you could view those web pages locally without ever being connected to a network, and all seven layers of the OSI model would be satisfied within the context of just that one computer that is NOT on a local network nor is it on the Internet because OSI describes ALL networking, whether its local or wide area, or campus networks, or metropolitan networks, or global networks, the OSI model literally exists within each and every device that is capable of communicating on a network.Examples of hardware that DO NOT exist within the OSI model would be ...VCRs ... or DVD players that don't have Ethernet ports on them ... or pretty much any TV set before the "Smart TV" ... film projectors, film-based cameras ... any analog telephone that must be connected to a POTs phone line ... if it doesn't have WiFi nor an Ethernet port on it, then it's not part of the OSI model.If it DOES have an Ethernet port on it, or a WiFi radio in it, then technically it also contains all seven layers of the OSI model whether or not it's connected to The Internet.The OSI model is just a model ... it's a description of the functions that must exist within a device before that device will be able to communicate on a network.99% of my need of the OSI model is specifically when I am troubleshooting a problem on a network. The OSI model can be invaluable when you need to understand where a problem exists so that you know how to approach it and fix it.A good analogy would be to say that in order for human beings to communicate with each other, they would need a body, a brain, and a mechanism from which to transcribe the thoughts in the brain to a tangible representation that could be then interpreted by other human beings who also have a body and a brain, but the body would be layer 1, vocal chords and hands would be like layer 2 (the post office could be seen as layer 3) ... the eyeballs or the ears could be the transport and session layers ... up to the comprehension of data being the application layer ...again ... its not a model that is unique for the Internet NOR internetworks, nor does it have any specific connection to the Internet other than the Internet existing within layer 3 pretty much exclusively. OSI applies to all digital hardware that is network capable.Mike

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2021, 03:36:07 pm
content: Quote from: Syntax Error on March 01, 2021, 03:28:31 pmHere's a wacky piece of trivia. In HK all local analogue landline calls have always been free. You just pay a fixed monthly line rental. If you get an old style, pre-ISDN, type of T1 local calls are also free. However, if you get any kind of ISDN connection, BRI or PRI, you pay per minute to make calls. ISDN never really took off in HK. I can't imagine why.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2021, 03:39:01 pm
content: Quote from: CJay on March 01, 2021, 02:58:41 pmI had one running until I left Fidonet two years ago. It was used for fax and as last resort for Fidonet nodes which couldn't connect via binkp (FTS IP mailer and protocol). I also have a USR V.everything (the early version sold as Courier V34 which can be easily upgraded via a firmware update). But you're right, they are basically e-junk now besides having some sentimental value.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2021, 03:41:08 pm
content: Quote from: EasyGoing1 on March 01, 2021, 03:29:45 pmDid you never catch on to the OSI model being developed as a joke? It actually describes no system ever developed. They started with 7, because Dante said that was the number of layers in hell, and worked backwards until they could assign a humorous name and meaning to each of those layers.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2021, 03:46:12 pm
content: Quote from: Syntax Error on March 01, 2021, 03:28:31 pmThere are still many ISDN PBXs and the telephone networks of some countries are also still based on ISDN. Over here it's nearly dead, i.e. phased out. And the last telcos running ISDN can't get new spare parts. It's all VoIP now.

author: EasyGoing1
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2021, 03:50:12 pm
content: Quote from: JohnnyMalaria on March 01, 2021, 02:33:29 pmAH! But that was not "The Internet" as it now exists ... Al Gores campaign was specifically intended to bring those kinds of inter-networks to the home user. That is why he sponsored legislation such as the "Information Super Highway Act of 1992" or whatever it was called. YES the Internet existed before then, but it was only available to an elite few organizations and it was only called The Internet once those ARPANET networks became globally interconnected and that happened long before people could connect to them from their homes. But originally, those networks only existed within higher education and government buildings as well as select private government contractors. But without Al Gore's efforts to bring those Internetworks to the home user, we would not have "The Internet" as a service like we do today (well we might, but it still would have required our government taking action to change the laws concerning who could legally connect to those networks (since they were all government created in their inception from various public fund sources) as well as whatever funding was required to then physically make those legal changes a reality for the public ... where anyone can now pay a monthly fee and purchase their own independent connection into that global pool of internetworks for around $30 a month or more ... which we affectionately refer to now as "The Internet".The other truth that I have been trying to say here, is that the term "The Internet" was totally unknown to the general public before the US government opened it up to the entire public. Prior to that, the only people who would have known what "The Internet" even was, would be people who existed in the organizations who were connected to it and possibly those who actually used it such as university students. But the general public knew NOTHING about "The Internet" until it was a service that they were finally able to purchase and use for themselves, and that didn't happen until Al Gore was successful in making it happen - at least here in the United States that is how shit went down.I hope that helps clarify what I have been trying to say here... and in 1989, the general public did NOT know anything about the Internet since it was not a service they could purchase access to until around 1994-ish.Mike

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2021, 03:52:53 pm
content: Quote from: EasyGoing1 on March 01, 2021, 03:29:45 pmLet's say layer 2.5. We have MPLS for 20 years now.

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2021, 03:56:09 pm
content: Quote from: madires on March 01, 2021, 03:39:01 pmGiven that I almost *never* use my landline for anything other than winding up 'Hello this is Microsoft calling, you have virus on your machine' now (it's the pipe that brings VDSL into my home) I could quite easily set up and run a BBS at home.It's a tempting idea, just need to find a modem a little faster than this one

author: JohnnyMalaria
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2021, 03:59:27 pm
content: Quote from: EasyGoing1 on March 01, 2021, 03:50:12 pmJust because the general public was ignorant does not negate the fact the Internet already existed and was in use by a lot of people. For sure, Al Gore shared a vision that many others had and, given his position of influence, enabled the development of the Internet as the lay public know it today.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2021, 04:01:37 pm
content: Quote from: CJay on March 01, 2021, 03:56:09 pmWhy faster? 2400 is the right speed for retro-feelings.PS: The maximum for VoIP lines is about 24k.

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2021, 04:08:44 pm
content: Quote from: madires on March 01, 2021, 04:01:37 pmI was hoping for 9600 but you make a good point. I wonder if I can scratch up an Amiga from somewhere...

author: EasyGoing1
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2021, 04:29:43 pm
content: Quote from: madires on March 01, 2021, 03:52:53 pmMPLS is actually pretty cool technology. It provides businesses with a VERY inexpensive way to create - effectively "nailed" end to end connections between buildings that geographically at great distances apart, but using the Internet as the mechanism for creating that "hard link' ... before the Internet was everywhere, the only way to get a true end to end connection between two buildings that were at great distances apart (California to New York for example) was to purchase very expensive dedicated circuits via T1 lines, T3 lines or fractional T1 lines also known as frame-relay circuits (those kinds of circuits were and are sold at a price based on cost per mile). T1 lines are the most common type and are telco owned dedicated trunk lines and they consist of 24 multiplexed channels of digital signal sent over two copper wires (64k in each channels because UNCOMPRESSED voice audio that happens in an end to end phone call requires 64k of bandwitch, so a T1 can handle 24 simultaneous phone calls). Of course when it came to interstate methods of implementing those connections on a physical layer, there could be any number of different technologies used along the way but in the early days before packet networks, infrastructure was optimized with multiplexers ... but with the adoption of fiber, other technologies were created to then transpose those kinds of signals on the fiber, but a T1 line from California to New York, had a government mandated level of service that we call the "Five 9's of reliability" meaning that as per federal law, that connection had to be up and working 99.99999% of the time in any given 12 month period.Today, companies can have a very similar kind of service using MPLS. The difference being that MPLS uses the telco's INTERNET backbone to create a virtual point to point connection between two different buildings.What is important to note here is that even though the packets that define the MPLS connection do exist on the Internet, the actual data that is passed within those packet streams ARE NOT accessible to the Internet. Because that MPLS connection is handed off to a customer as a point-to-point dedication connection that the customer would have to assign IP addresses to that are consistent with their internal PRIVATE network.It's like VPN, only managed by the telco themselves and without any need for the customer to deal with VPN details such as usernames and passwords etc. I like to think of it as a tunnel but better than a tunnel because it has certain bandwidth guarantees that go with it and that bandwidth is managed by the phone companies who own that infrastructure where the customer has no control over that aspect of the link.Here again, MPLS USES the Internet ... but is by no means a definition of the Internet itself... MPLS is to HTTP is to TCP is to UDP is to FTP is to SFTP is to TELNET is to TORRENTS is to etc. etc. etc. they all ride on the Internet but are not the Internet in it of themselves.

author: EasyGoing1
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2021, 04:32:53 pm
content: Quote from: JohnnyMalaria on March 01, 2021, 03:59:27 pmThat was the only point I was trying to make here ... that the Internet as we know it today, didn't start until well after 1987.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2021, 05:25:34 pm
content: Quote from: EasyGoing1 on March 01, 2021, 04:29:43 pmSorry, but it's the other way around.PS: To understand MPLS you should focus on the 'S' for 'switching'.

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2021, 05:50:51 pm
content: Quote from: madires on March 01, 2021, 05:25:34 pmYepJust set up massive AWS MPLS Direct Connect / datacentre global network...

author: hammy
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 01, 2021, 06:10:09 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on March 01, 2021, 03:41:08 pmNine. In Dante's Inferno hell is depicted as nine concentric circles.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2021, 07:40:38 pm
content: Quote from: hammy on March 01, 2021, 06:10:09 pmYeah, but it gets messy when you reach layer 7, as they all have subdivisions after that. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe OSI was based on the Taco Bell 7 layer burrito.

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2021, 07:43:51 pm
content: Yes layer 7 is where the hipsters and charlatans live.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2021, 07:48:20 pm
content: Quote from: EasyGoing1 on March 01, 2021, 02:25:56 pmSo many wrong statements there, it is difficult to know where to begin.The problem stems from your wrong and myopic definition of "the internet". You appear to be inspired by Humpty Dumpty's use of "glory"!

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2021, 08:03:22 pm
content: Anyone remember DECnet (the odds are that some of you must). Irrc, it had around 180k computers connected at one point, it was second only to Arpanet at the time. We were using emails, forums, and dial-in home terminals in the early-mid '80s!It was Ken Olsen's proud brag that DEC could network IBM computers better than IBM could. Happy days.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2021, 08:21:30 pm
content: Do you mean the network protocol suite or a network based on DECnet? IIRC, there was an international research network based on DECnet.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2021, 08:22:01 pm
content: Quote from: Gyro on March 01, 2021, 08:03:22 pmWasn't DECnet the world's largest carrier of email at one time? It dates from around the same time as ARPAnet. Is that figure of 180k computers pure DECnet, or the sum of systems interconnected by SNA, X.25 and other protocols?

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2021, 08:30:00 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on March 01, 2021, 08:22:01 pmIt wouldn't surprise me - it all seemed pretty normal compared to the 'culture shock' of going to work there.QuoteNope, that was just DECnet, VAXes and PDP-11s.P.S. I still have trouble remembering that it's forward '/' in web addresses!

author: helius
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2021, 09:38:33 pm
content: Quote from: madires on March 01, 2021, 03:39:01 pmDo you happen to know the specs of the power adapter for that? I picked up a Courier at a flea market a decade ago but power requirements are totally absent from the unit or its manual.I guess it could be 9 VAC, as many other modems are, but also might not.Also, if anyone wants to clue me in on what a "Voice" modem is, I would appreciate it. Ever since I read about the feature in the 1990s, I was confused about what it was or did. Does it convert audio into a RS232 bytestream for some kind of voicemail capability? Or does it just speak a limited vocabulary into the phone line?

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 02, 2021, 10:56:27 am
content: The original power adapter is a transformer with 2 * 8V AC at 1.2A. The voltage isn't critical, 9V are also fine. The pinout for the 4-pin Mini DIN is- 1 0V AC #1- 2 8V AC #2- 3 8V AC #1- 4 0V AC #2Pins 1 and 2 are connected. You can also power the modem with +12V DC (0.5A) and -12V DC (0.02A). IIRC, it has classic 78xx/79xx for low current stuff and a buck converter for 5V.Voice modems are able to play and record audio, and they came usually with some answering machine software. However, the audio quality isn't great.

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 02, 2021, 01:53:00 pm
content: Quote from: madires on March 02, 2021, 10:56:27 amThey often come with software to create call systems too, I.E. Press 1 for ritual humiliation, Press 2 to be connected to a demon from one of the lower circles of hell

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 02, 2021, 02:18:27 pm
content: Also called IVR. Most voice modems can detect and decode DTMF tones. So the IVR software is basically a specialized script interpreter making use of that.

author: Rasz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 02, 2021, 04:06:10 pm
content: ISDN ShmeeSDN, Ericsson decided to reinvent the wheel and made their own incompatible ISDN like product, Home internet Solution (HiS), using same underlying technologies (2B1Q coding at 160Kbit). My guess would be either bypassing patents, licensing fees, or strong Not-invented-here syndrome.page 20https://www.ericsson.com/assets/local/about-ericsson/ericsson-history/lme-review/documents/da2011-35599-ericsson_review_vol_75_1998.pdfhttps://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/speedy-internet-connection-for-export-only/3JBV3TX5BGTSZD34SEWMQT5U7Q/Hardware developed in New Zealand and manufactured in Australia of all places. Afaik only wide deployment happened in Poland (1999-2004), finally shut down in 2011.I got on the list and was one of the first connected in my district in late 1999. Cost of installation equaled one average monthly salary (~$300 at the time), then ~$40/month. Static IP, always on 115Kbit/s, real game changer after dialup. Today we pay ~$15 for 300Mbit cable, or up to $40 for 1Gbit fiber.

author: Leo Bodnar
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 09, 2021, 11:28:00 pm
content: I have used UUCP extensively over dial-up in 1980's and when I had to verify that the network was alive I would use what I called a "human ping."My UUCP provider had an email gateway to the TELEX network. After using it for awhile I have found that TELEX network also had a gateway to the postal system.When I thought there was a problem somewhere I would send a [usually stupid] uucp email to the TELEX number of the postal gateway that would send a high priority (flash? rush?- can't remember...) telegram to my postal address where I sat. If UUCP network connectivity was good, in 10-15 minutes local postman was running to my door to deliver the telegram and get the signature. The delivery requirement for high priority telegram was 15 minutes at the time.Telegram charges are per word (as some would remember!) so my ping contents was usually "SPIDERMAN==" or suchlike. Because it went through few gateways the sender name was also obfuscated. God knows what postmen thought of me and all this business.The TELEX and telegram are... oh, never mind.LeoQuote from: tggzzz on February 13, 2021, 11:52:48 am

author: rfclown
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 22, 2021, 02:35:07 am
content: Quote from: coppice on March 01, 2021, 07:40:38 pmA great comeback. Unfortunately Google tells me that the 7 layer burrito came out in 1993, long after Al made the internet what it is, and LONG after Hubert coughed up OSI in 1978.

author: nigelwright7557
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 22, 2021, 03:08:22 am
content: I even remember pre internet/www days with Prestel.It was teletext type service over the phone lines.Looking back I dont know how I worked without the internet.Had to wait for posted data sheets and post it component orders !Used Maplin quite a bit then and you had to fill in order sheet from catalogue codes and post it off.3 days later you would get your order often with a few things missing !I bought Microsoft Visual Studio and it came on 26 floppy discs !

author: DiTBho
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 22, 2021, 04:29:02 pm
content: I am using a kind of radio-link coupled with a modem.2Kbit/s, it's somehow like the old BBS

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 22, 2021, 04:57:10 pm
content: Quote from: nigelwright7557 on May 22, 2021, 03:08:22 amI worked on Prestel systems in 1979, when it was called ViewData (I think it went through other names, too). It was a really sad experience. Everything was done in such a half hearted way it had no chance of taking off. There was lots of enthusiasm among the people developing systems and applications, but very little management buy in to provide the resources to do a good job. The best money was doing contract work for government departments, investigating its potential in a number of applications areas.Quote from: nigelwright7557 on May 22, 2021, 03:08:22 amInstalling Unix from a large pile of 3.5" floppy disks was a real PITA.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 22, 2021, 07:16:50 pm
content: Quote from: DiTBho on May 22, 2021, 04:29:02 pmBefore WiFi I had a 128kbps wireless link based on DECT with the neighboring house. The DECT TAs had a RS232 interface for connecting to the PCs, and for IP I put a PPP link on top. That setup did work quite well.

author: MIS42N
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 22, 2021, 11:57:27 pm
content: A company I worked for had 64kbit backbone connecting sites. One time a colleague and I went to a site about 200km from home base, then found we needed a bit of software that we hadn't bought with us (on magnetic tapes IIRC). We calculated it would take 5 hours to download, or 5 hours to drive back, collect it, and return. We organised the download and had a ... really ... long ... lunch. Fortunately the wet piece of string that connected the sites remained moist for the duration and the download was error free. We were home before midnight (just).

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2021, 08:51:08 am
content: The first equipment I had at home in the late 80s was an 80*24 terminal and ISDN at 2.4kb/s.It was useful for email and usenet. It took a couple of seconds to refresh the screen.(Better than the first computer I used: 5cps 5channel paper tape)

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2021, 12:00:52 pm
content: Did you mean V.110? ISDN's digital throughput is 64kbps (US and some other countries 56kbps) per data channel.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2021, 01:00:17 pm
content: Definitely not 64kb/s, so you are probably right.My company installed, so I don't remember the details. What I do remember is that BT presumed such equipment was turned on all the time. When I, and others, turned it off overnight, the exchange automatically de-provisioned it.After having to "manually" reconnect it several times, they managed to find the relevant config parameter

author: Phil_G
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2021, 04:26:19 pm
content: I'm a BT lifer, retired now but when I moved to the BT Networks group, maybe 1987 ish? they were starting to build the UK backbone which ultimately became the UK www, fortunately I dont remember any of it apart from endless hours spent cabling & racking, 7 days a week, no time off till it was done! The upside was our group was the first in the company to have email addresses!After using topic-specific dial-up BBS's for years, Usenet was a revelation - so much variety of topics, you'd waste hours just checking out the weird ones!Later I moved into Network Design & Security, still within BT, and at the time the UK government wanted a free system to give everyone in the UK an email address. The result was a web-based email system called Talk21 which was my very first project in the new job. Though the platform is long gone, and I'm long retired, my talk21 address is still my main email :-)

author: donlisms
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 04, 2021, 09:52:57 pm
content: Late to the party... this thread brought back all kinds of memories. I was at SGI during most of this. I remember in the very early days Bob always pushing us to get some usenet connectivity, because that's where the fun was. Newsgroups -- something beyond just email back and forth with UUCP. Conversations.I remember years later overhearing hallway conversations as folks were trying to get this new horribly flaky browser code to run somewhat stabily on our early machines. I'm pretty sure Brendan E was involved in that, and I think Kipp had a hand, and others. (The elite group that got the fun stuff.) I remember the conversation going "Yes, well, but for it to get popular, it's going to have to be easy and fun, and the browser is really important. Nobody's going to do all that command-line stuff; they want to click and get visible results and such." And then somebody saying "Bandwidth. Goling to have to get bandwidth for everybody." And I remember other conversations... "Oh, Netscape is a new startup; a bunch of folks are going to go over there and take a chance on this new browser thing."I remember developers having this vision about hyperlinks being a much more normal part of your flow while browsing; that you would manually click on the link for a sub-topic that you were interested in, read all about it, and then return to where you were to continue the main article. You candothat these days, but it's not really the major element that we thought it would be. It's more page-level than "little block of content", and the links are pretty well hidden most of the time, because they're really not all that fun.Hm. I think those folks were right about browsers being important; and in spite of all the technical stuff that was necessary to make it happen, a reasonable GUI browser was the core of making people WANT to get connected and start doing stuff. So Brendan took off with some other folks and we ended up with Javascript. And Google appeared from nowhere a while later, at first a non-descript little building on some street in Mountain View that I often drove past on the way to lunch... who would have guessed they would take over the world? I just remember thinking "What a silly name! Where we gonna go for lunch?"Anyway, technology doesn't necessarily drive people's desires for more, more, more, unless it's interesting and accessible and all that. And it's the user-facing stuff that matters to most folks; what's underneath, arguing about protocols and terminology and such didn't have anything to do with making "the thing" popular. The technology makes it possible, that's all.It's all very simple... just get people to say "Ooh! That's neat! I want THAT!" and the technology will be made available with better performance and features for less money. Or a variation on the theme; I think in some cases in more recent years, peoplehavepushed that desire from the technological side, and sorta persuade people through peer pressure that this is the thing they're supposed to want now. Which is sad.

author: nigelwright7557
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 05, 2021, 07:36:12 pm
content: I remember Prestel which came way before the internet.I was working on Prestel adaptors in 1981 onwards.It was the same display as Teletext but data came from a Prestel computer on telephone line.Baud rates were 1200 receive and 75 transmit.