Date : Thu, 18 Nov 2010 09:22:22 +0000
From : robert@... (Rob)
Subject: [OT] Who'da thought...
On 18 November 2010 01:55, Rick Murray <rick@...> wrote:
> OT, and yes, you can shoot me for it later... ;-)
>
> exciting names like "Linnet" which could push to 2400bps. I've never
> called a BBS at 2400bps so I don't know if that is bi-di.
It was, although you'd be hard pressed to find anything that needed
it. Best I did in that era was Bulk Upload to Prestel at V22 -
1200bps full duples.
I started off on 300bps - a Maplin Modem, built from a kit. Ran the
BBS on a ex-GPO Modem 2B - hulking bit of kit that had individual
cards for each circuit. I used to sit the Beeb on top of it!
Slowest I used was 110ps, once.... Not a standard option on the Beeb,
but there was a jumper somewhere at the back that would alter the
clock to the serial circuitry such that it was close enough to work.
> of some tech, like the amusing dichotomy of the ever-so-expensive ISDN
> that offered 64kbps,
Full duplex, though, or bond two channels and get 128Kbps !
> or a bog-standard modem on POTS that offered nearly
> that.
Ah, 56K modems. I used a lot at customers, and *never* saw one
connect at more than 42. Uplink could go up to 33.3, but typically
would be 28.8. I think 28.8 was the most they could do when talking
to each other- "56K" internet access needed special modems at the
exchange end to support them.
> With my experiences of ISDN (at the library, pre-ADSL), it was...
> crap.
I had one customer whose entire Internet connection was through a
64Kbps ISDN connection. And by customer I mean a LAN with 40+ users...
I did set up a local mail server and Squid server to proxy and cache
everything, mind, and it was fine. Apart from when we found someone
listening to Radio 2 live streaming .... on a per/minute charged
connection...
by 1996 I was on Cable Modems - a trial service by NYNEX the then
local franchise holder. I don't know for sure how fast the local
connection was, but we were connected to the internet via a 2Mbps pipe
(after an initial 64Kbps, not much fun shared between 200!) and I
could max that out occasionally. This was a six month trial before
full launch, but C&W took them over, forgot about us for an extra six
months, then when they noticed, shut us down. "There's no future in
cable modems, we want to concentrate on digital TV"...
So, back to dial-up. eeks. At least by then un-timed calls were coming in..
1999 and I was one of the first test ADSL connections by Freeserve.
512Kbps all of my own, for ?47 per month ... the rest is a case of
increasing speeds and falling prices. I now get slightly under 6Mbps
on each line..
> ? 1200/75 ? ? ? ? ? ?-> ?megabits
> ? 2MHz CPUs ? ? ? ? ?-> ?multiple cores at >2GHz
> ? 32K ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?-> ?1Gb minimum
> ? 64K addressing ? ? -> ?hundreds of gigabytes
> ? tapes for storage ?-> ?half terrabyte harddiscs as standard
And think of the size ... I was trying to work out how much space the
storage currently available on the LAN would take up if I replicated
it my old Beeb's Amcom 10MB hard drive unit - I'd need 0.63 million of
them. It's a bigger box - maybe 18x7x6 inches. Given an inch each
side, that's nearly 800 /miles/ of shelf space ...! Think of the
signal lag ...
>
>
> The Beeb is clear. Basic, simple,
> to-the-point TTL logic. You can grasp it. You can wrap your head around
> it. You can flowchart and diagram every single address line through
> every single logic gate.
Apart from the ULAs, but yes, I agree. I understand the Beeb circuit,
and referred to it lots when doing the initial work on the Econet
emulation for BeebEm. How could any one person understand modern
consumer electronics... I think most these days are constructed from
modular "black boxes".
> Today's hardware isn't designed to be
> understood. It is designed to allow the drooling masses to gawk at
> kittens and naked asians. And play inane games on Facebook.
Ah, long gone are the times when state-of-the-art "computers" were a
hobby. Now it's only those of us harking back to the old ones that
are interested in the insides. . Like wireless sets, motor cars, and
other things before them, they are now just ubiquitous tools, and
(windows PCs) are right on the cusp of the "it's not working right,
throw it away and get a new one" category. If the march towards
web-apps carries on, I can see the end of the "home pc" as we know it
- a Chrome OS Tablet could be chucked when it fails, buy a new one,
log back in with your ID and password, and carry on without losing
anything..
Rob