There was no Internet back when I bought my first PC, but there were certainly computer modems.
\n
\nThe modem was not a popular peripheral. It was expensive and didn\u2019t really deliver you anything; to use the modem one computer had to call another computer, often using your home\u2019s only phone line. The communications was slow, too: 300 bps was the common speed, which is just a little bit faster than you can type and a whole lot slower than you can read.<\/p>\n
In 1982, my mom bought me a modem, which was genius on her part even though she didn\u2019t know squat about computers.<\/p>\n
I couldn\u2019t use the 300 bps modem it on my TRS-80 Model III because that computer lacked a serial (RS-232) port. So I had to buy one.<\/p>\n
Rather than go with the Radio Shack RS-232, which cost $300 plus installation fees, I found a replacement RS-232 in the back of a TRS-80 magazine, 80-Micro<\/em>. (I loved 80-Micro<\/em>). The replacement was only $140. I remember voiding my Model III\u2019s warranty to gingerly install the thing.<\/p>\n The modem was an auto-answer\/auto-dial modem. That meant that the computer could dial the thing out. The other 300 bps modem that Radio Shack sold was the classic acoustic coupler, similar to the one Matthew Broderick used in the film War Games<\/em>.<\/p>\n Acoustic couplers were very unpopular. They didn\u2019t work with every phone, because back in the 1980s the federal government was in the process of breaking up the AT&T or \u201cMa Bell\u201d monopoly. So you could buy any old phone you wanted to, which meant it might not fit into an acoustic coupler. Further, the noise in the room often disconnected the modem.<\/p>\n The world at 300 bps was rather dull. (We called it 300 Baud back then, which was incorrect but common.) I got a free CompuServe account with the modem. I remember reading \u201cthe news\u201d online, but it was too slow to be useful.<\/p>\n Yes, everything was text. Computer graphics were clunky and, well, looked like computer graphics.<\/p>\n Eventually, bewildered with what I could do, I went back to Radio Shack (without telling them I installed an alien RS-232 in my computer) and asked for a list of things to call with my modem. They gave me a sheet of BBSs or Bulletin Board Services.<\/p>\n A BBS was a computer some company or more likely some individual set up allowing other computers to call in. Some operated only evening hours, but the good ones were 24-hours. Obviously they had a dedicated line.<\/p>\n Some BBSs only offered software, and downloading software was really popular. In fact, you could download any commercial program if you hunted for it long enough. But downloading was slow; at 300 bps, you could get a 16K program into your computer in about 16 minutes. That was a maddening time to wait.<\/p>\n The BBSs I frequented offered what could be considered the prototype of the modern chat room or blog, though only one person at a time could be online and post something. Still, there were some great debates online, even as today.<\/p>\n Back in the early 1980s, most of the BBS debate wars were of the \u201cMy computer is better than yours,\u201d with the Commodore 64 users generally coming in last place (right behind us TRS-80 users). There were also the endless battles on gun control and other political topics. And just like today, someone eventually tossed out the word \u201cNazi\u201d or \u201cAdolph Hitler\u201d to end an argument. <\/p>\n Next post I\u2019ll talk about the dawn of the Internet, and the glory I had when I got my first 2400 bps modem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There was no Internet back when I bought my first PC, but there were certainly computer modems.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=777"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":783,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777\/revisions\/783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}