New at Reason

Tim Cavanaugh | November 30, 2005

Julian Sanchez dials up the new BBS: The Documentary, and remembers the era of crawling email and wide-open cyberspace.

Comments

|11.30.05 @ 4:35PM|#

What's the lowest baud rate anyone here has actually used? I think I started at 300 on my Dad's TI Silent 700 with acoustic coupler. Of course, I was young and used the computer to play Star Trek and Colossal Cave Adventure. All on thermal paper, mind you, not on some extravagance like a monitor. Jesus, I know what Spock meant when he was talking about "stone knives and bear skins". How did we ever survive?

|11.30.05 @ 4:35PM|#

All Hail Lord Cardboard!

|11.30.05 @ 4:41PM|#

Pot-

This was an extremely nerdy article.

|11.30.05 @ 4:42PM|#

Pro - I've used 300 baud a few times. I remember a few BBS's that you could connect to with 300, 900 (I think) and 1200 baud. The modem I had only had 300 or 1200, so if 1200 didn't seem to work, I'd try 300.

I also just had a dumb terminal, so it was basically a keyboard, modem, and a monitor.

I was a youngster, as well. But we'd play D&D by having the DM post a description of the situation and everyone else would say what they were going to do. Then the DM would play out a few 'rounds' and ask again. Pretty interesting.

But it was mainly a networking kind of thing for me...I usually stuck with the local BBS's.

Good times, good times.

|11.30.05 @ 4:43PM|#

Pro Libertate,

I think our coupled modem was 300 baud.

|11.30.05 @ 4:44PM|#

Lowdog,

Sounds like a very, very primitive MUD.

|11.30.05 @ 4:50PM|#

I can't claim to have used 300 baud, but I can say that my first computer was a Kaypro, and I remember when 14.4 modems were incredibly fast.
I'll go ahead and play the Luddite: things were, in many ways, better back in the pre-web days. AOLers were seen from time to time, but ignored or flamed until the went away. No one had any idea what a pop-up was. Gopher was no where near as powerful as google, but it worked reasonably well. Most of all, there were fewer slack-jawed morons in cyberspace. There, I've managed to come off as a luddite and an elitist. So be it.

BTW-I was never attatched to any particular BBS. I was more of a usenet lurker, an IRC user, and an inveterate mailing list addict. I'll end with a true geek test: does anyone remember the National Midnight Star mailing list?

keith|11.30.05 @ 4:50PM|#

I started out on 1200 baud. Ahh, Farthingale Arms BBS in Gainesville, FL -- my first introduction to libertarianism.

-Keith

|11.30.05 @ 4:52PM|#

I had whatever the top of the line C64 modem was. 400 baud maybe? Ahh the C64. You could tell how good a game was going to be by how much noise your 1541 Floppy Drive made. Really spiffy games would make the thing vibrate off the desk. Sweet.

Warren|11.30.05 @ 4:56PM|#

I remember BBS and trying to surf a GOFER and WAIS internet. Whatever cool stuff there was out there, I couldn't find it.

My controls proffessor said it best. The internet is like Ham Radio, it takes you years to aquire the equipment and expertise to effectively communicate on it, only to find out no one has anything to say.

Three things happened at about the same time that changed everything:
The World Wide Web
Netscape
Yahoo

|11.30.05 @ 4:58PM|#

These are the discussions that manage to make me feel like a complete "slack jawed moron."
Thanks for reinforcing that, Number 6. :)

Timothy|11.30.05 @ 5:03PM|#

I'm too young to remember BBS, but I started on IRC 10 years ago in junior high, and thusly my transformation into nerdy net denizen was begun.

|11.30.05 @ 5:08PM|#

Hakluyt - pretty much, yes. It's been so long now, but I can still kind of see how things were in my mind's eye, if not so much the content.

BTW, I meant "networking" as in networking among people, not networking in the sense we use computers now. ie, BBS's were a place to meet other people in your area who were into the same things as you.

|11.30.05 @ 5:12PM|#

Number 6, I sold Kaypros in high school. I think they cost like $2,000 then (1983). I can't recall for sure, but I think the Kaypro II had two floppy drives (360K each), 64K RAM, no hard drive, and a CP/M operating system. The modem I used at work was a 9600, I think, but it didn't come with the machine. There was a Kaypro 10 or something like that, which came with some sort of hard drive. Maybe it was a meg or two, but it was tiny compared to today's variety.

Considering that I learned computing on VAX mainframe terminals and TRS-80s (with cassette tape drives--egad), the Kaypro seemed pretty cool. Of course, the PC killed it as did, later on, the Mac.

|11.30.05 @ 5:13PM|#

The first computer terminal I ever used was a Teletype machine. Printed on paper and had a paper tape writer/reader for "backup." I think the baud rate was 110, IIRC. 300 baud (acoustically-coupled) modems were introduced to our high school computer lab a few months later. That was 1980.

As old school (pun intended) as that seems now, it was rather nifty to have an interactive session with the mainframe. There were some older card sort machines collecting dust in a back room.

DaveInBigD|11.30.05 @ 5:29PM|#

Slowest I've used was a 110 or 300 baud via a friend's machine on a CoCo. Slowest I've owned was a 1200 on an old 286. My modem owning days were short - 1990 to 1999. OK, technically I still own the modem, but its sitting in a disused machine that ended its operating life as a router for a cablemodem connection. OK, so I technically own a DSL modem now, but that doesn't really count for the purposes of this question.

That 1200 baud modem was used to connect to my college's DEC machine, which had email that was delivered via single-burst each night at midnight. That was the extent of our internet connection as late as 1994. Ugh.

|11.30.05 @ 5:32PM|#

Pro - hah, I still terminal into a VAX machine for my job. It handles the student information system for the community college I work for.

Yes, I know it's 2005 going on 2006. But we've got other cool things to work with.

And yes, I also know that working for a quasi-government institution like a community college is probably going to force me to turn in my libertarian decoder ring, but that's fine too. We all gotta work somewhere!

|11.30.05 @ 5:36PM|#

I got a blazing-fast 2400 baud modem for Xmas in '92, I think. So I could call prodigy and The Road to Nowhere, a Boston-area BBS.

I'll have to check out that documentary. I remember FidoNet. And tradewars. Ahh, such sunny memories, I was just a young n00b engaging in my first flamewars (PC vs. Mac, natch).

|11.30.05 @ 5:37PM|#

ProLibertate- Yup, spot-on. I had a II, which I inherited after my dad got a Kaypro 10. If I remember right, the HD had about 10 megs-enormous in those days. You had to manually park the heads before shutting down, or the disk would crash.

Personally, I liked CP/M. You could do an amazing amount of stuff with little power.

|11.30.05 @ 5:41PM|#

Also, I'll toss in that I learned to use the net on a terminal hooked into a UNIX mainframe. All those skills came in handy when I switched my PC to Linux earlier this year. It also gave my the opportunity to say things like "Holy shit, they still have PINE!?"

|11.30.05 @ 5:50PM|#

Number 6, strange how I could handle DOS in virtually no time at all as a CP/M expert. Of course, before I throw rocks at Microsoft, I note for the record that Apple was ripping off the brilliant minds at Xerox PARC at about the same time. Ah, the Wild West that was computing.

|11.30.05 @ 6:00PM|#

My first "online" system used a 300 baud modem. I used it to dialup Compuserve (long distance). I was one of the very early Compuserve members...

|11.30.05 @ 6:11PM|#

Dark ages

300 baud on a PDP 11/44 (RSX-11) playing empire on my home terminal.

Lets no forget Compuserve it was a National Bulletin board - I would find staff and email
programs back and forth to consultants - this was in the precambrian 1980's.

|11.30.05 @ 6:17PM|#

10 years ago in junior high

Aww. :)

|11.30.05 @ 6:39PM|#

I remember FidoNet

So do I. And writing Echo posts in SLMR to be posted when I dialed up again. (Which was actually a nice design, and which actually prefaced quoted lines with the person's initials. Kickass for DOS...)

|11.30.05 @ 6:50PM|#

My dad had an acoustic modem he would bring home from work that he used to dial into the University mainframe from our Apple II at home, this would have been 1980 or so. I'm pretty sure it was maybe 110 or 150 baud. I actually did a little bit of basic programming through that, but it was easier to just use the Apple II itself.

Of course, before I throw rocks at Microsoft, I note for the record that Apple was ripping off the brilliant minds at Xerox PARC at about the same time. Ah, the Wild West that was computing.

Off topic, but I would like to note that this is not entirely true:

"Apple did not "rip-off" the Macs UI from Xerox. Apple had hired some people from Xerox (like Jef Raskin, Bruce Horn) who believed in concepts of a Graphical User Interface. These concepts are pretty broad -- like making a computer easier to use by using graphics (icons), using menus, windows and making a consistent interface to do things. The work on these concepts predates Xerox PARC -- in fact it was many of these peoples individual work on those concepts that got them hired at PARC. So Xerox (PARC) brought them together to refine them.

Apple's work on GUI's predates Steve Jobs visit to Palo Alto Research Center. Apple had already had the same broad goals of offering an easier to use computer, and possibly using some of the same concept (like menus, icons, and graphics)....

Jobs was so hot on the concepts of UI, and the living Demos he say, that he, later, negotiated a deal with Xerox. He gave Xerox a large sum of stock in Apple (worth Millions) if he could come back, and bring some programmers -- to inspire them more on the concepts of GUI. This was like a one-day tour. This was agreed to by Xerox, and so by no stretch of the imagination could this be called "ripping-off".

PARC was a research center -- meant to inspire development. But they did not really develop products (in the commercial sense), they developed ideas.... Xerox didn't see Apple as competition, that is why they let them in -- but they charged Apple, since Xerox believed that their research had value."

|11.30.05 @ 7:54PM|#

My first modem was made completely of wood.

|11.30.05 @ 8:00PM|#

And since wire hadn't been invented yet, we had to use yarn, which you would dampen so the electricity could get through.

|11.30.05 @ 8:10PM|#

Going through my grandfathers old kit magazines I saw plans for a 60 baud modem. AC speeds baby. Oh yeah!

|11.30.05 @ 8:30PM|#

Lowdog,

I am sure a few of my areas exist out there on some Muds somehwere.

I was basically involved in the founding (as a user) of IRC.

|11.30.05 @ 8:55PM|#

I don't remember what baud rate modem we used back in the Prodigy BBS days.

But I do remember an old daisy-wheel printer we had. ("We" means "my parents.") I once had some free-lance writing assignment that I had to print out -- it was about 20 pages long, and took about 40 minutes to print out. And it sounded like woodpeckers having a machine-gun battle the whole time.

tomWright|11.30.05 @ 9:08PM|#

Man, for once I only deel middle aged instead of old!

I used some phone couplers in high school, but the first PC I owned was a 386sx with a 9600 modem, I think it was 9600. Trying to get a fractal graphics generator to work on that thing was an exercise in futility, what with no math co-processor.

Those were the days. BBS, fidonet, z-modem, q-modem, chat sessions on the bbs with 'private rooms', early net porn, er, games, that's right, games.

I actually traded my last telephone modem earlier this year for some beer. If was a v.92bis I think, 56+k or something like that. I use a cable modem now and have no land line. I am proud to say I am 100% Verizon free.

|11.30.05 @ 9:28PM|#

Stevo Darkly,

My roommates in college hated those all night paper writing sessions because of my old daisy wheel printer.

|11.30.05 @ 9:47PM|#

Acoustical coupling modems were 300 baud.

|11.30.05 @ 9:47PM|#

Heh.. Old timer I guess.. I too started out on a "Cyber" teletype to the University of Minnesota mainframe. First real computer I had (relativly speaking) was and Apple ][ with a 300 baud acoustic coupler.

In Grad School, I was the first to log in to the mainframe with a 9600 baud modem.. They thought I was a Prof due to the "high speed" connection. :)

|11.30.05 @ 9:53PM|#

I came to BBS's as a pimply thirteen year old, just as the World wIde Web was soon to displace the world of BBS's. Growing up in a rural Alabama town, the idea of connecting to a world of people with similar tastes and interests was incredibly exciting, since very few people I knew shared the same geeky persuits. Oh, on 2400 modem. I remember fondly getting a 14.4 baud modem for my birthday and thinking I was the man.

The games were also kickass - Trade Wars, Usurper, Baron Realms elite, Legend of the Red Dragon...ahh what a nerd I was (am).

I still remember seeing the modern internet on a Netscape browser at a community computer club for the first time. The frontier seemed endless. While a lot of crap has since clogged the information superhighway, things like Google Print still offer the promise of what we all hoped the internet could be.

Thanks for the trip down memory land Julian....

|11.30.05 @ 10:12PM|#

My first computer was an 8086 powered Toshiba laptop with two floppy drives and no HD. It had a built in 300 baud modem. I was a Tradewars master and my favorite BBS was called Smash The State.

|11.30.05 @ 10:33PM|#

Ha! Awesome how many people here had Kaypros :) We had a Kaypro II. And by "we" I pretty much mean "my parents," but I still like to lay claim to it. I was at the library today and I saw their Friends' Book Sale had some ancient computer books, including one about the Wordstar program from 1983. I almost wanted to pick it up to put next to me 1989 Fodor's Germany :)

|11.30.05 @ 11:28PM|#

A 2400 and Fido.net, those were the days. Let's start a flame war: Kermit or Z-modem?

|11.30.05 @ 11:47PM|#

I started out on a 1200 bps playing league trade wars and forum chats -- AnarchyX and some site about English Music -- awesome memories -- and as a jr high student -- the porn loaded so slowly as to be pointless...moved up to a massive 9600 and then onto the internet as we know it

|12.1.05 @ 2:58AM|#

Good grief, do I feel old. No wonder I miss so many of the more subtle references around here.

I first used a 110 baud data terminal (acoustic coupled with ye old 20 pound bell telephone handset) in high school where we connected to the Princeton University mainframe and used paper tape as the backup mechanism. Oddly this was a better and more interactive environment than the one I encountered in college where I was the transport mechanism. There we used punch card terminals (screw up character 79? start over!) and then humped them downstairs to feed into a card reader. Ugh!

The first modem I owned myself was 300 baud and I ran a 300/1200 BBS for about a year and a half in eastern North Carolina ('85 and '86).

A 2400 and Fido.net, those were the days. Let's start a flame war: Kermit or Z-modem?

FidoNet was an amazing development. A real connection to ab-USENET via local BBS before companies like BBN and Netcom made personal connections to the Internet possible for the masses.

Z-Modem started taking off around the time USR was bringing out 9600 baud modems ('87 or so?) and was really effective for local BBS access. All it really did was suck up the best ideas of the previous X- and Y-Modem protocols and do them pretty well. Bigger block sizes, less Acks, works good. It was a very basic protocol and assumed very little.

Kermit found a lot of support shortly afterward as I recall because dialup started moving into the world of unix systems and someone (Sprint?) created a way to economically extend the reach of a dialup freak with a flat rate (I think it was around $50/mo) plan that gave you several thousand minutes per month to about forty major cities nationwide for data traffic. Kermit dealt with stuff like non ascii file names, error recovery on a noisy long distance lines and so on with about the same performance as Z-Modem.

I'll stop the threadjack now.

|12.1.05 @ 3:31AM|#

Ah yes. Groovy memories. I had Apple IIe and an Apple IIGS in like 80-81-82. Had an internal Hayes modem- 300 or 600 baud. The term "cyber punk" hadn't been coined yet but I felt like one anyway. It was totally moy star wars (Tex Mex for futuristic). (BTW, I remember that we called that appendage that R2 inserted into communication grids, such as the one on the Death Star, a modem) I posted on a chess BBS, a New Wave BBS (It really was new back then), and a Sci-fi BBS where I meant and got together with a very cute intellectual (cyber) punked out girl who called herself Tronita, as in the movie, Tron. She was definitely ahead of the curve cuz "Neuromancer", one of the very first cyber punk volumes, didn't even come out till 84!

|12.1.05 @ 3:38AM|#

Come to think of it, I had a Hayes external modem too. Maybe one of my modems back then was a 1200 or even 2400 baud. I don't recall and I'm not gonna research it. :)

|12.1.05 @ 3:48AM|#

...make that: "where I *met* and got together..."

(All these years of telecommunication advancement and I still don't use the F***ing Preview button!

|12.1.05 @ 3:58AM|#

...the years that I'm recalling probably include 83 and 84 as well. I'm tired of trying to remember this fun stuff in a chronologically accurate fashion. I wanna crash.

|12.1.05 @ 8:34AM|#

"What's the lowest baud rate anyone here has actually used?"

I remember running at 300 and being able to type faster than it could transmit over the crappy telephone lines in our area. That was with our family's Atari 800.

I remember playing some online star-trek type game on Compu-Serve - a progenitor of today's online gaming - where you were presented a text 'map' of your area. Running at 300 baud I'd get my butt kicked by those lucky souls who had the state of the art 1200s - they'd get multiple shots in while I was still loading!

And yes, I admit I was a geek.

Ok, Ok. I still am...

Nicole|12.1.05 @ 10:52AM|#

Thanks for the heads up on the documentary.

I met my husband on a (Klingon-themed) BBS in the mid-90s. We were both acquainted with the guy who ran it, though we're mild Star Trek fans at best. There was actually a forum where people could practice their Klingon skills and discuss pronunciation.

Come to think of it, there were actually TWO Klingon-themed BBSes in our area...

|12.1.05 @ 12:37PM|#

Lowest baud rate I ever used was 2400, starting with my first PC in '93 (I was a late-adopter). That was blazing fast at the time, though. I started off as an AOLhole, but I really spent more time on the newsgroups than on AOL. I remember being amazed that you could exchange regular correspondence with folks in Europe. Geez, what a rube!

|12.1.05 @ 12:55PM|#

got together with a very cute intellectual (cyber) punked out girl who called herself Tronita

She sounds cool. Got any pictures?

I had an AOL beau in '94. I only met him five times but I guess he was pretty cool.

|12.1.05 @ 3:13PM|#

poco,

Yeah, I do have pics of her but they aren't digital cuz that tech wasn't extant back in the early/mid eighties.