The history of private datacommunication 4279

On Sun, 27 Aug 2006 15:37:14 -0800, Floyd L. Davidson

AFAIRemember, and the books are in a different room, and in an unstable pile, V21 and Bell212A used their tones in diametrically different ways. From memory (again), there was a complete ban worldwide on using modems EXCEPT those that had been approved in the country involved, and as most of the expertise in most of those countries had not moved on from telex, almost everyone had illegal modems working. here (.ie) and the UK mostly used 75-1200, and as telephone here were State operations, the charges were heavy (at the moment, my phone charges are about half that of the 1980's).. Anyway, with most interesting stuff being on BBS that had upload-download ratios, there was a problem getting stuff uploaded.. (Ways around that, involving cracking the boards and copying files there to appear as uploads, were liable to get one banned, specially if the sysop was a student, or even a schoolboy, who would be at home during the day).. From memory, again, any serious use of modems in a business was a waste of time and effort, the connections were too bad until the introduction of real error-detecting algorithms (MNP?.. as mentioned in another message?).. Actually, I think that anyone who has a vital computer connected in any way to outside communications ( without permenant and competent IT staff) is crazy. Whine, rant, rant..

-- greymaus Just Another Grumpy Old Man