Sometimes I forget how long I have been using a some nifty technology so the universe whacks me over the head with a clue stick and reminds me. Over the weekend, my younger son was building a file server out of an old PC that he found in the basement. Digging through the case, he exclaimed, “Whoa! This thing’s got a modem.”
Sagacity at the ready, I pontificated, “Think about it. Even if you decided to show someone how a modem worked, who would you call with it these days?”
To which the kid looked blankly at me and responded, “I’ve never used a modem, Dad.”
Well doh! Silly me for not realizing it. He never used an on-line service or sent an email message until after we had always-on internet.
I last used dial-up internet in 1997. I had a 9,600 baud modem and thought it was the cat’s meow because it was fast enough that I could telnet through it to the Ultrix workstation on my desk at work. You are probably reading this and going, huh? Telnet? Ultrix? I am not offended. That was the same reaction I got 14 years ago. I’m used to it by now.
In November 1997, Candy and I founded Pigasus Software and we brought a dual-channel ISDN line into the home/office. For the first time, my internet was “always on” and my bandwidth jumped from about 9,600 bits per second to a blazingly fast 128,000 bits per second. That was so much bandwidth that Pigasus Software hosted it’s own web site and a Mailman mailing list server for The Mankind Project on a PC in my den.
I remember modems and “AT” commands and that annoying squeal as the modem “dialed in” and the dreaded “NO CARRIER.” My kids missed all that fun.
Oh, lest I forget, that blazingly fast 128,000 bits per second pales in comparison to my current 20,000,000 bits per second cable connection.
Now where is that cheat sheet that I printed of the local CompuServe dial-up phone numbers?
