45-Year-Old Modem Used To Surf the Web 622
EdIII writes with this awesome snippet from Hack a Day: "'[phreakmonkey] got his hands on a great piece of old tech. It's a 1964 Livermore Data Systems Model A Acoustic Coupler Modem. He recieved it in 1989 and recently decided to see if it would actually work. It took some digging to find a proper D25 adapter and even then the original serial adapter wasn't working because the oscillator depends on the serial voltage. He dials in and connects at 300baud. Then logs into a remote system and fires up lynx to load Wikipedia. Lucky for [phreakmonkey] they managed to decide on a modulation standard in 1962. It's still amazing to see this machine working 45 years later.' Although impractical for surfing the Internet today, there is something truly cool about getting a 45-year old modem to work with modern technology. The question I have, is what is the oldest working piece of equipment fellow Slashdotters have out there? I'm afraid as far back as I can go is a Number Nine Imagine 128 Series 2 Graphics card on a server still in use at my house which only puts me at about 14 years."
Just Throw It on the Meme Heap (Score:5, Funny)
And I suppose the instant I show any signs of lag in World of Warcraft I'll have to listen to my guildmates crack jokes about me using a 1964 Livermore Data Systems Model A Acoustic Coupler Modem ruining the raid.
Re:Just Throw It on the Meme Heap (Score:5, Funny)
oldest piece of "equipment" (Score:5, Funny)
My hammer. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Just Throw It on the Meme Heap (Score:3, Funny)
+++
oldest pieces? (Score:5, Funny)
The question I have, is what is the oldest working piece of equipment fellow Slashdotters have out there?
Well as far as modem technology goes I've still got a classic 1200 baud Hayes modem; must be from the early 80s I would guess (perhaps older?); it was working fine when I stopped using it around 1993 or so (upgraded to 2400 baud FTW!!)* ... I'm sure it would still work if I plugged it in today but I'm not hunting down an RS-232 adapter to find out. If we want to talk audio gear I've got some much older items, including a pair of AR speakers from the 60s that still sound pretty damn good... Now get the hell off my lawn!
* (and back then FTW still meant Fuck the World!!)
PLEASE! Establish an "R2D2 Standard" (Score:3, Funny)
Pick a small set of standards that will work "well enough" and let them become the Legacy Standard. I'm so sick of going to garage sales and seeing good equipment, such as printers and scanners, that won't connect to any computer that I own. I have a drawer full of PS/2 keyboards.
I hope that someday, someone posts a
The grandson of Hemos connected to the DukeNukemForeverNet* using a computer with USB, DVI, a drive that SPINS, and only 64GB of RAM, after all, 64GB should be enough RAM for anybody.
*DNFNEt is a networking protocol that uses baling wire and bubble gum... and I'm all out of bubble gum.
Anyone still paying for a phone? (Score:5, Funny)
Heh, you might check your parents or grandma... they have probably paid thousands of dollars for that phone over the years.
Re:2 modems, 4 cans, 2 strings.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:My hammer. (Score:5, Funny)
Unimpressive, all of you. Most of the atoms in my computer are like, billions of years old.
Re:Oldest Working? (Score:4, Funny)
TRS-80 Model 1 still in it's box with all documents and packaging.
No I haven't kept it that long, I found it as NOS in a tiny town rat-shack 10 years ago. bought it for $10.00 and a 6 pack of beer.
Re:oldest piece of "equipment" (Score:5, Funny)
I just needed a long time to know how to work it.
I assume you are referring to that useless "dongle" between your legs?
Re:oldest piece of "equipment" (Score:4, Funny)
bing!
Re:Model M Keyboard (Score:3, Funny)
Drag it behind a donkey, it'll survive the trip about as well as Indiana Jones surviving a nuclear blast in a refrigerator.
Re:Model M Keyboard (Score:3, Funny)
Ignore my post. Jumped the gun. While I do have 2 keyboards, they are for IBM terminals and not adaptable for PC use.
*mumbles something about Alzheimer's creeping in*
Old (Score:5, Funny)
what is the oldest working piece of equipment fellow Slashdotters have out there?
There's this rock I use as a paperweight next to my computer. I figure it's anywhere between 100 million and 2 billion years old.
Re:My hammer. (Score:3, Funny)
Dude, dont post about your incestuous family affairs,
whatever turns your crank, just don't post it here...mmmK! O_O
14" Radiation King Monitor (Score:2, Funny)
I have a 14" Radiation King that refuses to die. It's from about 1990, just before radiation levels became a marketing thing. Now I guess we just assume low radiation, as I haven't seen that touted as a selling point for quite some time.
Procrastinate much? (Score:5, Funny)
He recieved it in 1989 and recently decided to see if it would actually work.
Wow. And I thought I was bad about putting things off.
Re:Model M Keyboard (Score:5, Funny)
I'll pay $5, as that's what Google says [google.com] a keyboard is worth.
Google is old hat - everyone who is anyone uses Wolfram Alpha. Alpha-ing "cost of keyboard" [wolframalpha.com] gives a price of $47.87 - although if it has a "market cap" (is that anything like caps lock?) the price skyrockets to $21.2 billion.
Just be glad you're looking at the cost of a keyboard instead of the actual value [wolframalpha.com] - according to Wolfram Alpha, the value of a keyboard is U+2328. Although I'm not sure what that is in US dollars, because "convert U+2328 to US dollars" [wolframalpha.com] doesn't seem to give anything helpful.
Re:2 modems, 4 cans, 2 strings.... (Score:5, Funny)
Try PSK31 (31.25 bps binary phase shift keying mode used for ham radio) with a couple of sound cards. It'll work over open air with a speaker and microphone. If you used two different carrier tones, you could probably do full duplex.
For my own implementation of PSK31, I once ran it at a carrier of 62.5 hz. Sounded more like war drums than a digital mode over my subwoofer, but it still decoded OK.
sick.....you are all sick.......
Re:Back then (Score:3, Funny)
What do you mean, "not lifetime"? It lasted for the entire lifetime of the card, didn't it?
Re:oldest piece of "equipment" (Score:5, Funny)
Useless until he figured out the protocol for the handshake.
Re:oldest piece of "equipment" (Score:3, Funny)
dongle
Most useless dongle ever: you use it to disable your built in copy protection.
Re:My hammer. (Score:5, Funny)
Now, we have things that are designed specifically to try and hit the sweet spot between durability and cost
by that definition, my walmart deck lounger is the most precisely engineered piece of equipment in the history of mankind. Whenever I sit down, I feel like it's half a hamburger away from catastrophic failure. (that's one croissant in metric units)
Re:oldest piece of "equipment" (Score:5, Funny)
Beware of viruses when making connections to untrusted hosts!
Re:oldest piece of "equipment" (Score:5, Funny)
Beware of viruses when making connections to untrusted hosts!
Viruses are something that can be dealt with - unintentionally spawning new processes is another matter entirely...
Re:Just Throw It on the Meme Heap (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Model M Keyboard (Score:5, Funny)
Google is old hat - everyone who is anyone uses Wolfram Alpha. Alpha-ing "cost of keyboard" [wolframalpha.com] gives a price of $47.87 - although if it has a "market cap" (is that anything like caps lock?) the price skyrockets to $21.2 billion.
Just be glad you're looking at the cost of a keyboard instead of the actual value [wolframalpha.com] - according to Wolfram Alpha, the value of a keyboard is U+2328. Although I'm not sure what that is in US dollars, because "convert U+2328 to US dollars" [wolframalpha.com] doesn't seem to give anything helpful.
Dude, Alpha is so old school... these days we "bing" things... get with the times!
Re:My hammer. (Score:3, Funny)
(that's one croissant in metric units)
What's that in wafer thin mints?
Re:oldest piece of "equipment" (Score:5, Funny)
As a parent, you're allowed to kill your children. If you do not wait for your children they'll become zombies and if you die, your children will be adopted by someone else. Maybe you should finger the user before making a connection.
UNIX is full of great metaphors and such....
Re:Just Throw It on the Meme Heap (Score:3, Funny)
C/PM 80! Fortran 70! Stronium 90! Polysorbate 80! or Fight!
Re:Oldest Working? (Score:5, Funny)
I have an abacus that's really old. :-(
Unfortunately, I can't find the system disks to boot it up
Re:Where'd you get a compatible handset? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:2 modems, 4 cans, 2 strings.... (Score:3, Funny)
Let's see, 2 modems, 4 cans, 2 strings... how many cups?
Re:oldest piece of "equipment" (Score:5, Funny)
Forget about fingering, they won't even let me sniff their ports.
Re:my killer ancient "console" (Score:1, Funny)
As a linguist, I'm curious; what language has your post been translated from?
Re:oldest piece of "equipment" (Score:4, Funny)
Indeed I once was. I have successfully spawned two new processes. However, these new processes consume a lot of resources and we worry that spawning any more might cause the kernel (bank) to OOM (out of money) kill us.