TIME TO VOTE-
It is time to vote against the creation of a new newsgroup to replace
misc.writing.screenplays because that group is the home of the net k00k
Jai Maharaj (Jay Stevens). The new group would be called
misc.writing.screenplays.moderated if it passes and it would be
moderated by censorship advocate Alan Brooks. To vote, send a blank
email to [email protected] and a ballot will be sent to
you. Results will be posted to news.groups in 3 weeks.
GET THEM SOCK PUPPETS OUT OF THE DRESSER FOR THIS ONE!
VOTE NO, AND VOTE OFTEN!
SAY NO TO CENSORSHIP!
ORIGINAL CFV:
FIRST CALL FOR VOTES (of 2)
moderated group misc.writing.screenplays.moderated
Newsgroups line:
misc.writing.screenplays.moderated Craft/business of screenwriting. (Moderated)
Votes must be received by 23:59:59 UTC, 23 Dec 2004.
This vote is being conducted by a neutral third party. Questions about
the proposed group should be directed to the proponent.
Proponent: Alan Brooks <[email protected]>
Proponent: Ken Wheat <[email protected]>
Proponent: Dena Jo Kanner <[email protected]>
Votetaker: Bill Aten <[email protected]>
RATIONALE: misc.writing.screenplays.moderated
Over the past few years the existing group misc.writing.screenplays has
become a magnet for off-topic cross-posters. In a typical day, as much as
80% of the traffic on this group is driven by a single, malicious,
self-promoting poster. The proposed moderation level is simply to
eliminate most cross-posts, thereby eliminating the most egregious of serial
trolls. Moderation of this group will be automated and very minimal, but
even this level of moderation is expected to reduce overall traffic to the
group by a very large percentage and to bring the on-topic signal well above
the noise again.
This change is requested only to save a beloved and well-used discussion
area by creating a moderated sister newsgroup as a forum where professional
screenwriters and serious, aspiring, amateur writers can discuss their craft
in the public arena.
CHARTER: misc.writing.screenplays.moderated
The misc.writing.screenplays.moderated newsgroup is open to discussion of
the art and business aspects of writing screenplays for feature films,
documentaries and television. Specific topics may include but are not
limited to:
Finding an Agent
Querying Production Companies
Latest formatting trends
Creative screenplay writing
Screenwriting software
Screenwriting books
Screenwriters, their skills and styles
Tools available to the screenwriter
Collaboration issues
Tips from the pros
Moderation policies:
The purpose of the proposed moderation is not to escape from the meandering
and conversational tone of misc.writing.screenplays, but to eliminate the
excessive abuse of the newsgroup by cross-posters from unrelated groups.
The intention is to implement robo-moderation, eliminating all cross-posts
except the few that are appropriate. Cross-posts to groups such as
news.groups, news.announce.newgroups and news.announce.newusers will be
allowed unless these groups become the vehicle for serial-cross-posting by
trolls.
The moderators reserve the right to filter posts from individuals who
already have a history of off-topic cross-posting, and who simply alter
their techniques to single-posting off-topic articles, or who attempt to
flood the group, or who alter their posting headers to simulate approved
status.
END CHARTER.
MODERATOR INFO: misc.writing.screenplays.moderated
Moderator: Alan Brooks <[email protected]>
Moderator: Dena Jo Kanner <[email protected]>
Moderator: Mysti Berry <[email protected]>
Administrative contact address: [email protected]
Article submission address: [email protected]
END MODERATOR INFO.
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"Dave Hinz" wrote in message
> Dave "Been there, done that, got the 1200 Baud Hayes Smartmodem" Hinz
That was high tech, dude ... my Fido BBS was first run on a 300 baud "hayes
compatible". I clearly remember when I hit the big time with a US Robotics
9600, along with 4 MB of memory in the box.
Jack Rickard, who ran "Board Watch" magazine, is who should have run for
Prez in 04!
--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 11/06/04
In article <[email protected]>,
Dave Hinz <[email protected]> wrote:
>On Fri, 3 Dec 2004 10:50:35 -0600, Swingman <[email protected]> wrote:
>> "Dave Hinz" wrote in message
>>
>>> Dave "Been there, done that, got the 1200 Baud Hayes Smartmodem" Hinz
>>
>> That was high tech, dude ... my Fido BBS was first run on a 300 baud "hayes
>> compatible".
>
>Well, the first one was a Hayes 300 that I bought out of the back of
>Byte magazine for $239.00, in probably 1981. I wrote the BBS software
>(in Basic, of course), and it ran on a 64KB TRS-80 Color Computer with
>(4) 156K floppy drives (5-1/4" of course).
>
>> I clearly remember when I hit the big time with a US Robotics
>> 9600, along with 4 MB of memory in the box.
>
>Always wanted one of those. White plastic case, wasn't it?
Nope. The white-plastic case was the 'sportster' -- came along later.
The USR Smartmodem 9600 was in the same aluminum case, with the black
band front and rear, as the Smartmodem/Smartmodem 1200/Smartmodem 2400 line.
But the really desirable one was the 'Courier' line. black case, slanted
edges on the front 3 sides. and *expensive* On the other hand, they got
you circa 14kbps, when most of the rest of the world was having trouble
getting above 2400. First was the 'Courier HST', then, _as_ the standards
developed, they added 9600, and then 14,400 support. Then there was an ISDN
model, and finally the "V.everything".
The true top-of-the-line, however, were the Telebit "TrailBlazer" products.
_started_ with 19.2K throughput, and worked over nearly _any_ kind of a phone
line. trans-oceanic, satellite bounce, whatever. durn near _nothing_ would
cause those units trouble. Of course, they were *expensive* -- circa $700
each, and frequently had more processing power internally in the modem than
the computer they were connected to. (The Trailblazers had an internal
Motorola 68030 processor, playing like a DSP.)
> But,
>anything faster than 2400 baud is wasted anyway, because that's as fast
>as you can read text.
You can read in excess of _two_thousand_ words a minute?
I can _barely_ keep up with a sustained 1200 words/minute.
Thu, Dec 2, 2004, 10:11am (EST-3) [email protected] (Russ) come here
burbling:
TIME TO VOTE-
It is time to vote <snip>
OK. My vote is you print your post out, on very stiff paper,
crumple it into a ball, and then suff it . . .
JOAT
Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind dont
matter, and those who matter dont mind.
- Dr Seuss
On 3 Dec 2004 08:14:00 -0800, Larry Bud <[email protected]> wrote:
> You guys are the old sysops from the 80's and early 90's whose power
> has been taken away by the internet.
Ehhh, just for the record, _some_ sysops from the early 80's don't care
so much about power these days (or then, I don't think).
Dave "Been there, done that, got the 1200 Baud Hayes Smartmodem" Hinz
On Fri, 3 Dec 2004 10:50:35 -0600, Swingman <[email protected]> wrote:
> "Dave Hinz" wrote in message
>
>> Dave "Been there, done that, got the 1200 Baud Hayes Smartmodem" Hinz
>
> That was high tech, dude ... my Fido BBS was first run on a 300 baud "hayes
> compatible".
Well, the first one was a Hayes 300 that I bought out of the back of
Byte magazine for $239.00, in probably 1981. I wrote the BBS software
(in Basic, of course), and it ran on a 64KB TRS-80 Color Computer with
(4) 156K floppy drives (5-1/4" of course).
> I clearly remember when I hit the big time with a US Robotics
> 9600, along with 4 MB of memory in the box.
Always wanted one of those. White plastic case, wasn't it? But,
anything faster than 2400 baud is wasted anyway, because that's as fast
as you can read text.
Dave Hinz
On Fri, 03 Dec 2004 18:21:17 GMT, Scott Lurndal <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Youse guys and your high tech. My first modem was 110-baud
> acoustic coupler (you know, stick the handset in the rubber
> cups)
Yup, had one of those first too. Dumped it almost immediately, because
it didn't fit my phone.
> connected through current-loop interface to a Western
> Electric ASR-33 (complete with paper tape punch/reader).
OK, you win.
> Getting that decwriter with the 300-baud AC modem was a dream.
Damn skippy it was.
On Fri, 3 Dec 2004 13:28:02 -0500, Lee Michaels <leemichaels*nadaspam*@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> "Scott Lurndal" <[email protected]> wrote
>>
>> Youse guys and your high tech. My first modem was 110-baud
>> acoustic coupler
> Is this turning into a retro technology pissing match??
Naah, just the old-farts club meeting.
> My first modem was a set of drums I used to communicate with the next
> village. :-)
We used to _dream_ of having drumsticks. We had to take rocks, break 'em
into pieces, swallow them, and then, er, Damn. Where was I going with
that?
Bruce Barnett wrote:
> [email protected] (Larry Bud) writes:
>
>> You guys are the old sysops from the 80's and early 90's whose power
>> has been taken away by the internet.
>
> correction:
>
> You guys are the old sysops from the 80's and early 90's who BUILD the
> Internet.
I think you mean "built" don't you?
Maybe, maybe not. Experiences may vary, but my experience was that the
internet was the realm of an elite, privileged few. Some big industry
types, military types, college students, professors. We were off to the
side doing the BBS thing in a completely different world. We had echo
boards like FIDONet and the other one... Hrm. Anyway, "The Cathedral and
the Bazaar" calls guys like me "DOS hackers." We weren't part of the UNIX
scene, and weren't part of the internet in the '80s. Not my generation,
especially. Those born in the '60s, and who then went on to be in the
right place (universities, big industry, military) at the right time were
doing that deal in the '80s, but we children of the '70s didn't really get
our first taste of the internet until the early '90s.
I had a dialup shell account at my school for a year or so, as soon as I
managed to cajole my way into getting an account, even though I wasn't a CS
major. Shortly thereafter, they started one of the nation's first ISPs in
the next town, giving me access to the internet "directly." It was pretty
cool. I used to ftp stuff from some yonder to the university computer, and
then download the files to my home computer with zmodem or kermit, at a
screammmmmming 9600 baud, if I was lucky enough to catch the one 9600 baud
modem in the pool. Most days it was 2400 if I was lucky.
The web was in its earliest infancy back then, and I had heard rumors about
it, but I couldn't do any graphical stuff with that original setup. We
didn't even have lynx. I didn't see the web for the first time until '93
or '94, I guess, when I got the SLIP account.
Even at that, only being on usenet since maybe '92, I once tallied up all my
old posts in a fit of boredom. Projecting forward, and adding some email
into the brew because most of the places I hang out these days are mailing
lists, I have a pretty reasonable estimate that I have pounded out around
1,250,000 words on this keyboard, in about 25,000 messages.
Damn I talk a lot.
I hate Microsoft with intense passion, but if anyone has an original
Microsoft Natural Keyboard in good shape, I'll take it off your hands.
This one has served me well, but it won't be much longer before I actually
wear through some of the keycaps. The lower row right hand keys are
getting pretty thin on top, and they lost their letters five years ago.
Like so many other things in this world, the ones they're making now are
complete crap. I want to collect about two more of these olds ones, which
I figure will tide me over until the machine can scan my retinas and tell
what I'm thinking in about 20 years.
--
Michael McIntyre ---- Silvan <[email protected]>
Linux fanatic, and certified Geek; registered Linux user #243621
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/5407/
http://rosegarden.sourceforge.net/tutorial/
Dave Hinz wrote:
> anything faster than 2400 baud is wasted anyway, because that's as fast
> as you can read text.
And no one will ever need more than 512 MB of memory for any reason, wasn't
it?
As far as the retro pissing match, Dad had a Heathkit dumb terminal he and I
(mostly he) built, and a 150 baud acoustic coupler of some flavor to go
with it. My one and only venture into the dark underworld of cracking was
to play around on that thing. OK, I broke into the grocery store computer.
I'm so cool. Now what am I going to do? Put filet mignon on special?
LOL! The sort of cool part was I did it (broke into the computer where Dad
worked) by whistling into the phone.
Computers became more interesting once I got my beloved CoCo, but that's
another story for another off-topic post.
--
Michael McIntyre ---- Silvan <[email protected]>
Linux fanatic, and certified Geek; registered Linux user #243621
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/5407/
http://rosegarden.sourceforge.net/tutorial/
On Fri, 3 Dec 2004 18:01:46 -0500, David Eisan <[email protected]> wrote:
> Dave,
>
> Did you live in London in the 80's?
No, but I did spend 3 months in St. Albans (Herts) in 1992 or 1993....???
Dave
On Sat, 04 Dec 2004 00:07:42 +0000, Robert Bonomi <[email protected]> wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>,
> Dave Hinz <[email protected]> wrote:
>>On Fri, 3 Dec 2004 10:50:35 -0600, Swingman <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>> I clearly remember when I hit the big time with a US Robotics
>>> 9600, along with 4 MB of memory in the box.
>>
>>Always wanted one of those. White plastic case, wasn't it?
>
> Nope. The white-plastic case was the 'sportster' -- came along later.
Yeah, that was it.
> The USR Smartmodem 9600 was in the same aluminum case, with the black
> band front and rear, as the Smartmodem/Smartmodem 1200/Smartmodem 2400 line.
Heh. On my desk right now (OK, I cheated and went and got it) is a Hayes
"V-series ULTRA Smartmodem 9600" (V.32). That lovely aluminum extrusion
and all. I wonder if USR came out of Hayes? I don't remember that
history.
> But the really desirable one was the 'Courier' line. black case, slanted
> edges on the front 3 sides. and *expensive* On the other hand, they got
> you circa 14kbps, when most of the rest of the world was having trouble
> getting above 2400.
We've got 3 of those in the lab here too (just checked). We need to have
a cleanup day, I think.
> First was the 'Courier HST', then, _as_ the standards
> developed, they added 9600, and then 14,400 support. Then there was an ISDN
> model, and finally the "V.everything".
That's the 3 we have, V.everything.
> The true top-of-the-line, however, were the Telebit "TrailBlazer" products.
> _started_ with 19.2K throughput, and worked over nearly _any_ kind of a phone
> line. trans-oceanic, satellite bounce, whatever. durn near _nothing_ would
> cause those units trouble. Of course, they were *expensive* -- circa $700
> each, and frequently had more processing power internally in the modem than
> the computer they were connected to. (The Trailblazers had an internal
> Motorola 68030 processor, playing like a DSP.)
Sweet. I started out on the 6809, so I've always liked the 60xx(x) families.
>
>> But,
>>anything faster than 2400 baud is wasted anyway, because that's as fast
>>as you can read text.
>
> You can read in excess of _two_thousand_ words a minute?
I think your math is off. Hang on. OK, 2400 baud, assume 10 bits per
character (stop bit, parity, plus 8 bits of ascii, right)? So that's
240 characters per second. That's 3 lines. Yeah, that's a bit much.
Maybe it's 1200 baud that I could keep up with.
> I can _barely_ keep up with a sustained 1200 words/minute.
That's prolly it.
Dave
On Fri, 03 Dec 2004 19:24:33 -0500, Roy Smith <[email protected]> wrote:
> It was great to leave the speaker turned on when the 'Blazer connected.
> The noises they produced while analyzing the transmissions qualities of
> the circuit were really impressive. We used to call it "The Rhino
> Mating Call".
Yeah, but can you whistle the handshaking tones for not just 110 and
300, but for the 1200 baud connections?
On Sat, 04 Dec 2004 02:31:13 -0500, Silvan <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> As far as the retro pissing match, Dad had a Heathkit dumb terminal he and I
> (mostly he) built, and a 150 baud acoustic coupler
110 baud maybe? ISTR that the speed was made to correspond with the
tty (teletype) systems of the day?
> of some flavor to go
> with it. My one and only venture into the dark underworld of cracking was
> to play around on that thing. OK, I broke into the grocery store computer.
> I'm so cool. Now what am I going to do? Put filet mignon on special?
> LOL! The sort of cool part was I did it (broke into the computer where Dad
> worked) by whistling into the phone.
Well, "broke into" for values of "got the modem to think I had data to
give it", but yeah.
> Computers became more interesting once I got my beloved CoCo, but that's
> another story for another off-topic post.
You know, a lot of folks I know who have turned into Unix admins got our
start on the CoCo. I wonder what the correlation is there.
Dave Hinz
Dave Hinz wrote:
>>
>> As far as the retro pissing match, Dad had a Heathkit dumb terminal he
>> and I (mostly he) built, and a 150 baud acoustic coupler
>
> 110 baud maybe? ISTR that the speed was made to correspond with the
> tty (teletype) systems of the day?
Yeah, 110. My bad.
>> to play around on that thing. OK, I broke into the grocery store
>> computer.
>> I'm so cool. Now what am I going to do? Put filet mignon on special?
>> LOL! The sort of cool part was I did it (broke into the computer where
>> Dad worked) by whistling into the phone.
>
> Well, "broke into" for values of "got the modem to think I had data to
> give it", but yeah.
Well, I mean I whistled his password. Or something. I got right in there
man, with all the illicit power of a script kiddie just dying to get into a
grocery store price database and wreak havok. Then I hung up and walked
away before Dad could whoop my ass for messing with his terminal thingie.
> You know, a lot of folks I know who have turned into Unix admins got our
> start on the CoCo. I wonder what the correlation is there.
Probably the tinker factor. I wasn't the active tinkerer so much as Dad in
those days, being only like eight or something, but we tinkered. We put
more RAM in than it was supposed to have, we twiddled something and burned
a new EPROM so it could print lowercase characters, we burned some other
EPROM to let it read both sides of a double sided disk and stuff.
With PCs there was still some tinker factor in the early days. Jiggle this
and twiddle that to get a few extra bytes of RAM to make this other work,
and stuff like that, and you usta could get a compiler for less than $500
for even more tinkering. Then by about Windows 95 they had worked really
hard to get rid of all the tinker factor. You can root around in the
Registry if you really want to, but it's not fun. It's hard to twiddle
around with Windows and make it truly your own. Some of that is a good
thing in some ways, but it's often a bad thing too, because it's such a
bitch to get in and fix something when it breaks.
Not so Linux. It's a tinkerer's dream. All the tinkering you could ever
want, and when you're not in the mood to tinker, most everything usually
just works. It's rare anymore, especially in the last year or so, to HAVE
to tinker with it if you don't feel like it.
I can't speak for Unix more generally, but that's one of the things that
really drew me to Linux initially. It put the joy back into computing. I
have mostly gotten over the joy, and am more likely just to accept out of
the box defaults these days. I can have it both ways, and I love that.
--
Michael McIntyre ---- Silvan <[email protected]>
Linux fanatic, and certified Geek; registered Linux user #243621
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/5407/
http://rosegarden.sourceforge.net/tutorial/
On Sat, 04 Dec 2004 15:01:12 -0500, Silvan <[email protected]> wrote:
> Dave Hinz wrote:
>
>> You know, a lot of folks I know who have turned into Unix admins got our
>> start on the CoCo. I wonder what the correlation is there.
>
> Probably the tinker factor. I wasn't the active tinkerer so much as Dad in
> those days, being only like eight or something, but we tinkered. We put
> more RAM in than it was supposed to have,
Yup, did that, both the 32K "piggyback", the 64K "cut & jump", and later,
the 512KB mod on the COCO3.
> we twiddled something and burned
> a new EPROM so it could print lowercase characters,
Yup,
> we burned some other
> EPROM to let it read both sides of a double sided disk and stuff.
Not familiar with that one.
> With PCs there was still some tinker factor in the early days. Jiggle this
> and twiddle that to get a few extra bytes of RAM to make this other work,
> and stuff like that, and you usta could get a compiler for less than $500
> for even more tinkering.
I liked that you could poke into a certain address and double the clock speed
all the way to nearly 1.8 MHz, up from 0.9MHz. And it almost always didn't
crash the system, if your RAM was fast enough.
> Then by about Windows 95 they had worked really
> hard to get rid of all the tinker factor. You can root around in the
> Registry if you really want to, but it's not fun. It's hard to twiddle
> around with Windows and make it truly your own. Some of that is a good
> thing in some ways, but it's often a bad thing too, because it's such a
> bitch to get in and fix something when it breaks.
I lost interest completely in computers somewhere from DOS4 to DOS5 days,
didn't get back into it until the 486s were in vogue. Had to do with
burnout, starting college, and a very bad boss for a programming gig
(if you're someone reading this and wondering if I mean you, then
yes, most likely, if you had someone named Toni working for you).
> Not so Linux. It's a tinkerer's dream. All the tinkering you could ever
> want, and when you're not in the mood to tinker, most everything usually
> just works.
Yup. For my utility boxes, Linux is the answer. My desktop at home is
an Apple iMac, which wraps Unix in a pretty GUI, and everything "just works".
> It's rare anymore, especially in the last year or so, to HAVE
> to tinker with it if you don't feel like it.
Yup.
> I can't speak for Unix more generally, but that's one of the things that
> really drew me to Linux initially. It put the joy back into computing. I
> have mostly gotten over the joy, and am more likely just to accept out of
> the box defaults these days. I can have it both ways, and I love that.
Exactly. I've found myself prototyping stuff for work, on my system at
home. One is running FreeBSD/Mac OSX, the other is running Solaris, but
they're both Unix and even config files transfer; just recompile the binaries.
Fun stuff, this "anything other than Windows". We do miss out on the
viruses, though...and the spyware...
Dave Hinz
On Sat, 04 Dec 2004 22:13:40 +0000, Robert Bonomi <[email protected]> wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>,
> Dave Hinz <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>We've got 3 of those in the lab here too (just checked). We need to have
>>a cleanup day, I think.
>
> If it comes time to get rid of 'em. I'd be interested in 2 of them, for
> my 'museum'.
Noted. What continent are you on?
> It was a "given", however, with the Trailblazers, that if _they_ wouldn't
> connect, you couldn't get through with _anything_, not even an 'old reliable'
> Bell 103 at 110 baud or below.
Yes, that was the modem of choice for people on crappy connections.
> A *lot* of skull-sweat went into the DSP software in those boxes. And the
> way they chopped the audio spectrum up into a _lot_ of independent narrow
> bandwidth sections, and put a separate carrier in each section. Skipping
> over the sections that were 'too noisy' to use reliably.
I didn't know they were doing that, but it makes perfect sense. Is that
how they're doing it these days as well? I'm not up on that side of
things; I prefer 802.11b these days.
> *POSTULATING* 10 bits/char, it takes 60 bits (6 chars * 10 bits/char) to
> represent a 'standard word' for speed calculation purposes.
>
> thus,
> bits/sec * 60 sec/min
> --------------------- ==> words/min
> 60 bits/word
>
> The 'units' conversions cancel out, as do the two '60' scaling factors.
>
> _X_ bits/sec === _X_ words/min
>
> If the 'character' is something other than 10 bits, you have to adjust
> accordingly.
>
> thus:
> 110 baud -> 100 words/min (11 bit characters)
> 300 baud -> 300 words/min
> 1200 bps -> 1200 words/min
> 2400 bps -> 2400 words/min
Cool, I never noticed that.
Dave Hinz
On Fri, 3 Dec 2004 13:28:02 -0500, "Lee Michaels"
<leemichaels*nadaspam*@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>"Scott Lurndal" <[email protected]> wrote
>> "Swingman" <[email protected]> writes:
>> >"Dave Hinz" wrote in message
>> >
>> >> Dave "Been there, done that, got the 1200 Baud Hayes Smartmodem" Hinz
>> >
>> >That was high tech, dude ... my Fido BBS was first run on a 300 baud
>"hayes
>> >compatible". I clearly remember when I hit the big time with a US
>Robotics
>> >9600, along with 4 MB of memory in the box.
>>
>> Youse guys and your high tech. My first modem was 110-baud
>> acoustic coupler (you know, stick the handset in the rubber
>> cups) connected through current-loop interface to a Western
>> Electric ASR-33 (complete with paper tape punch/reader).
>>
>> Getting that decwriter with the 300-baud AC modem was a dream.
>>
>Is this turning into a retro technology pissing match??
>
>My first modem was a set of drums I used to communicate with the next
>village. :-)
>
>
I had the next version; two women meeting each other in the mall who have
not seen each other in "ages". Ever notice how they sound like two modems
connecting? "OOOOh, Judith!" "Eeeee! Connie" Handshake complete and
data transfer starts ....
In article <[email protected]>,
Dave Hinz <[email protected]> wrote:
>On Sat, 04 Dec 2004 02:31:13 -0500, Silvan
><[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> As far as the retro pissing match, Dad had a Heathkit dumb terminal he and I
>> (mostly he) built, and a 150 baud acoustic coupler
>
>110 baud maybe? ISTR that the speed was made to correspond with the
>tty (teletype) systems of the day?
110, 150, and 300 were _all_ common serial-port speeds of the day. The _same_
modem protocol ("Bell 103") was used for all of them. In fact the same
_modem_ itself, could be used, *without* any changes at the modem , for any
speed below 300 baud.
110 baud was for the _high_speed_ teletype circuits of the day -- 100 word/min.
vs the standard circuits at 60 word/min.
300 baud was for high-speed devices -- 'glass terminals', and some printing
terminals that were built suitably.
150 baud was used for 'selectric' type devices, because that was as fast as
the mechanical parts could operate.
>> of some flavor to go
>> with it. My one and only venture into the dark underworld of cracking was
>> to play around on that thing. OK, I broke into the grocery store computer.
>> I'm so cool. Now what am I going to do? Put filet mignon on special?
>> LOL! The sort of cool part was I did it (broke into the computer where Dad
>> worked) by whistling into the phone.
That's a "higher level" approach. You weren't exploiting a 'bug'. rather you
used a "weasel". <groan>
[email protected] (Russ) wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> TIME TO VOTE-
<snip the crap>
The fact that you people think you're so high and mighty to tell
others what groups should be created crack me up. Without knowing
any better, I went through the "procedure" to create a group a while
back, and after all the BS that went on, I just found a guy whose
usenet server allowed him to create groups created it for me.
You guys are the old sysops from the 80's and early 90's whose power
has been taken away by the internet.
Dave Hinz <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> On 3 Dec 2004 08:14:00 -0800, Larry Bud <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > You guys are the old sysops from the 80's and early 90's whose power
> > has been taken away by the internet.
>
> Ehhh, just for the record, _some_ sysops from the early 80's don't care
> so much about power these days (or then, I don't think).
>
> Dave "Been there, done that, got the 1200 Baud Hayes Smartmodem" Hinz
Didn't mean to lump all sysops in together, but when I read the stuff
these guys say, it really takes me back.
In article <[email protected]>,
Dave Hinz <[email protected]> wrote:
>On Sat, 04 Dec 2004 00:07:42 +0000, Robert Bonomi
><[email protected]> wrote:
>> In article <[email protected]>,
>> Dave Hinz <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>On Fri, 3 Dec 2004 10:50:35 -0600, Swingman <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I clearly remember when I hit the big time with a US Robotics
>>>> 9600, along with 4 MB of memory in the box.
>>>
>>>Always wanted one of those. White plastic case, wasn't it?
>>
>> Nope. The white-plastic case was the 'sportster' -- came along later.
>
>Yeah, that was it.
>
>> The USR Smartmodem 9600 was in the same aluminum case, with the black
>> band front and rear, as the Smartmodem/Smartmodem 1200/Smartmodem 2400 line.
>
>Heh. On my desk right now (OK, I cheated and went and got it) is a Hayes
>"V-series ULTRA Smartmodem 9600" (V.32). That lovely aluminum extrusion
>and all. I wonder if USR came out of Hayes? I don't remember that
>history.
Arghh!! my mistake. There was _no_ *USR* Smartmodem line. that was Hayes's
_registered_ trademarked name.
Hayes and USR had no common history. USR was originally named in honor of
the company that employed Dr. Susan Calvin, in the analysis of positronic
brains.
The Hayes extruded aluminum 'box', *was* copied by a whole _bunch_ of people.
and I _THINK_ (but at this point I'm no longer sure) that USR offered an
'in between' model in that style case. The 'sportsters' were the budget
home-use line, and the "Courier" was the high-end commercial line.
USR was _very_ late in introducing a 9600 baud model in the Courier line.
the early spec for the 9600 baud 'standard' had technical problems, and
units built 'to the standard' did _not_necessarily_ work with other brands
that were _also_ built to the standard. USR had the higher-performing
and also "incompatible-with-anything-else" HST protocol -- they didn't
see a need to jump on the 9600 bandwagon -early-.
They _may_ have even built on the V.32bis (14.400) standard -- which came
out about the same time the 'corrected' V.32 (9600) standard was released.
>> But the really desirable one was the 'Courier' line. black case, slanted
>> edges on the front 3 sides. and *expensive* On the other hand, they got
>> you circa 14kbps, when most of the rest of the world was having trouble
>> getting above 2400.
>
>We've got 3 of those in the lab here too (just checked). We need to have
>a cleanup day, I think.
>
>> First was the 'Courier HST', then, _as_ the standards
>> developed, they added 9600, and then 14,400 support. Then there was an ISDN
>> model, and finally the "V.everything".
>
>That's the 3 we have, V.everything.
If it comes time to get rid of 'em. I'd be interested in 2 of them, for
my 'museum'.
>> The true top-of-the-line, however, were the Telebit "TrailBlazer" products.
>> _started_ with 19.2K throughput, and worked over nearly _any_ kind of a phone
>> line. trans-oceanic, satellite bounce, whatever. durn near _nothing_ would
>> cause those units trouble. Of course, they were *expensive* -- circa $700
>> each, and frequently had more processing power internally in the modem than
>> the computer they were connected to. (The Trailblazers had an internal
>> Motorola 68030 processor, playing like a DSP.)
>
>Sweet. I started out on the 6809, so I've always liked the 60xx(x) families.
>
Before the advent of the 28.8k (and subsequent 33.6k) modems, Telebit
practically *owned* the long-distance, high-speed, modem market.
USR's Courier HST, was somewhat more finicky about line quality than the
1200/2400 baud "bell 212"-esque 'smartmodem' and equivalents. Good for
across town, not so good for inter-state. and particularly not for
international distances.
It was a "given", however, with the Trailblazers, that if _they_ wouldn't
connect, you couldn't get through with _anything_, not even an 'old reliable'
Bell 103 at 110 baud or below.
A *lot* of skull-sweat went into the DSP software in those boxes. And the
way they chopped the audio spectrum up into a _lot_ of independent narrow
bandwidth sections, and put a separate carrier in each section. Skipping
over the sections that were 'too noisy' to use reliably.
>>> But,
>>>anything faster than 2400 baud is wasted anyway, because that's as fast
>>>as you can read text.
>>
>> You can read in excess of _two_thousand_ words a minute?
>
>I think your math is off. Hang on. OK, 2400 baud, assume 10 bits per
>character (stop bit, parity, plus 8 bits of ascii, right)? So that's
>240 characters per second. That's 3 lines. Yeah, that's a bit much.
>Maybe it's 1200 baud that I could keep up with.
240 char/sec, at 6 ASCII characters/word (5 'printable' plus the inter-word
'space') is 40 words/sec. --> 2400 words/min.
Note: bits/sec, and words/min have an "interesting" relationship.
*POSTULATING* 10 bits/char, it takes 60 bits (6 chars * 10 bits/char) to
represent a 'standard word' for speed calculation purposes.
thus,
bits/sec * 60 sec/min
--------------------- ==> words/min
60 bits/word
The 'units' conversions cancel out, as do the two '60' scaling factors.
_X_ bits/sec === _X_ words/min
If the 'character' is something other than 10 bits, you have to adjust
accordingly.
thus:
110 baud -> 100 words/min (11 bit characters)
300 baud -> 300 words/min
1200 bps -> 1200 words/min
2400 bps -> 2400 words/min
Dave,
Did you live in London in the 80's?
David.
"Dave Hinz" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> On Fri, 3 Dec 2004 10:50:35 -0600, Swingman <[email protected]> wrote:
> > "Dave Hinz" wrote in message
> >
> >> Dave "Been there, done that, got the 1200 Baud Hayes Smartmodem" Hinz
> >
> > That was high tech, dude ... my Fido BBS was first run on a 300 baud
"hayes
> > compatible".
>
> Well, the first one was a Hayes 300 that I bought out of the back of
> Byte magazine for $239.00, in probably 1981. I wrote the BBS software
> (in Basic, of course), and it ran on a 64KB TRS-80 Color Computer with
> (4) 156K floppy drives (5-1/4" of course).
>
> > I clearly remember when I hit the big time with a US Robotics
> > 9600, along with 4 MB of memory in the box.
>
> Always wanted one of those. White plastic case, wasn't it? But,
> anything faster than 2400 baud is wasted anyway, because that's as fast
> as you can read text.
>
> Dave Hinz
"Scott Lurndal" <[email protected]> wrote
> "Swingman" <[email protected]> writes:
> >"Dave Hinz" wrote in message
> >
> >> Dave "Been there, done that, got the 1200 Baud Hayes Smartmodem" Hinz
> >
> >That was high tech, dude ... my Fido BBS was first run on a 300 baud
"hayes
> >compatible". I clearly remember when I hit the big time with a US
Robotics
> >9600, along with 4 MB of memory in the box.
>
> Youse guys and your high tech. My first modem was 110-baud
> acoustic coupler (you know, stick the handset in the rubber
> cups) connected through current-loop interface to a Western
> Electric ASR-33 (complete with paper tape punch/reader).
>
> Getting that decwriter with the 300-baud AC modem was a dream.
>
Is this turning into a retro technology pissing match??
My first modem was a set of drums I used to communicate with the next
village. :-)
In article <[email protected]>,
J T <[email protected]> wrote:
>Thu, Dec 2, 2004, 10:11am (EST-3) [email protected] (Russ) come here
>burbling:
>TIME TO VOTE-
>It is time to vote <snip>
>
> OK. My vote is you print your post out, on very stiff paper,
>crumple it into a ball, and then suff it . . .
No, _no_, *NO*! _Don't_ 'crumple it into a ball' -- the correct approach
is to 'fold it until it is -all- sharp corners" *then* emplace it.
Sat, Dec 4, 2004, 10:23pm (EST+5) [email protected]
(Robert=A0Bonomi) says:
No, _no_, *NO*! _Don't_ 'crumple it into a ball' -- the correct approach
is to 'fold it until it is -all- sharp corners" *then* emplace it.
I stand corrected.
JOAT
Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind dont
matter, and those who matter dont mind.
- Dr Seuss
On Sun, 5 Dec 2004 04:07:02 -0500, J T <[email protected]> wrote:
> Sat, Dec 4, 2004, 10:23pm (EST+5) [email protected]
> (Robert Bonomi) says:
>> No, _no_, *NO*! _Don't_ 'crumple it into a ball' -- the correct approach
>> is to 'fold it until it is -all- sharp corners" *then* emplace it.
>
> I stand corrected.
I'm not sure. Is "emplace" a real word, then?
Tue, Dec 7, 2004, 9:58pm (EST+5) [email protected] (Dave=A0Hinz)
wonders:
I'm not sure. Is "emplace" a real word, then?
Yep.
JOAT
Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind dont
matter, and those who matter dont mind.
- Dr Seuss
test - test
Dave Hinz wrote:
> On Sun, 5 Dec 2004 04:07:02 -0500, J T <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>Sat, Dec 4, 2004, 10:23pm (EST+5) [email protected]
>>(Robert Bonomi) says:
>>
>>>No, _no_, *NO*! _Don't_ 'crumple it into a ball' -- the correct approach
>>>is to 'fold it until it is -all- sharp corners" *then* emplace it.
>>
>> I stand corrected.
>
>
> I'm not sure. Is "emplace" a real word, then?
>
[email protected] (Larry Bud) writes:
> You guys are the old sysops from the 80's and early 90's whose power
> has been taken away by the internet.
correction:
You guys are the old sysops from the 80's and early 90's who BUILD the
Internet.
--
Sending unsolicited commercial e-mail to this account incurs a fee of
$500 per message, and acknowledges the legality of this contract.
Silvan <[email protected]> writes:
> Maybe, maybe not. Experiences may vary, but my experience was that the
> internet was the realm of an elite, privileged few. Some big industry
> types, military types, college students, professors.
Well, in 85 I was with a small company that had UNIX boxes and was
hooking them up to USENET via UUCP. In 87 I joined a Fortune 10
company and hooked it up to the Internet. I never did the BBS stuff.
In those days, you grabbed the software and a UNIX box and built
everything from scratch. If you had a problem, you read the source
code, or else you asks the net-gods mailing list. Russ Allbery is in
that category. He was one of those responsible for developing the
software that we are using right now. (search for INN FAQ) So you can
say he helped build the Internet. More that I did, anyway.
And he continues to do so, by the way. So the comment Larry Bud made
>You guys are the old sysops from the 80's and early 90's whose power
>has been taken away by the internet.
is completely wrong when talking about Russ Allbery.
--
Sending unsolicited commercial e-mail to this account incurs a fee of
$500 per message, and acknowledges the legality of this contract.
In article <[email protected]>,
Dave Hinz <[email protected]> wrote:
>On Fri, 03 Dec 2004 19:24:33 -0500, Roy Smith <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> It was great to leave the speaker turned on when the 'Blazer connected.
>> The noises they produced while analyzing the transmissions qualities of
>> the circuit were really impressive. We used to call it "The Rhino
>> Mating Call".
>
>Yeah, but can you whistle the handshaking tones for not just 110 and
>300, but for the 1200 baud connections?
>
The 110 baud and 300 baud 'carrier' is the same tone. 'Bell 103' standard.
at 1200 baud, it depends on which 'standard' was being used: 'Bell 202',
'Bell 212', or 'Vadic 3400', just for starters.
I could whistle a Bell 103, or a Bell 212 carrier,
Heck, I knew a guy who could _modulate_ his Bell 103 'whistling'. Well enough
that he could transmit messages that way.
On Fri, 3 Dec 2004 13:28:02 -0500, "Lee Michaels"
<leemichaels*nadaspam*@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>"Scott Lurndal" <[email protected]> wrote
>> "Swingman" <[email protected]> writes:
>> >"Dave Hinz" wrote in message
>> >
>> >> Dave "Been there, done that, got the 1200 Baud Hayes Smartmodem" Hinz
>> >
>> >That was high tech, dude ... my Fido BBS was first run on a 300 baud
>"hayes
>> >compatible". I clearly remember when I hit the big time with a US
>Robotics
>> >9600, along with 4 MB of memory in the box.
>>
>> Youse guys and your high tech. My first modem was 110-baud
>> acoustic coupler (you know, stick the handset in the rubber
>> cups) connected through current-loop interface to a Western
>> Electric ASR-33 (complete with paper tape punch/reader).
>>
>> Getting that decwriter with the 300-baud AC modem was a dream.
>>
>Is this turning into a retro technology pissing match??
>
>My first modem was a set of drums I used to communicate with the next
>village. :-)
You had DRUMS??? My village just banged sticks against the ground! :)
Aut inveniam viam aut faciam
> > Dave Hinz <[email protected]> wrote:
> >>On Fri, 3 Dec 2004 10:50:35 -0600, Swingman <[email protected]> wrote:
> >>
> >>> I clearly remember when I hit the big time with a US Robotics
> >>> 9600, along with 4 MB of memory in the box.
> >>
> >>Always wanted one of those. White plastic case, wasn't it?
> >
> > Nope. The white-plastic case was the 'sportster' -- came along later.
>
> Yeah, that was it.
>
> > The USR Smartmodem 9600 was in the same aluminum case, with the black
> > band front and rear, as the Smartmodem/Smartmodem 1200/Smartmodem 2400
line.
>
No - that was Hayes Smartmodem.
--
-Mike-
[email protected]
[email protected] (Robert Bonomi) wrote:
> The true top-of-the-line, however, were the Telebit "TrailBlazer" products.
> _started_ with 19.2K throughput, and worked over nearly _any_ kind of a phone
> line. trans-oceanic, satellite bounce, whatever. durn near _nothing_ would
> cause those units trouble. Of course, they were *expensive* -- circa $700
> each, and frequently had more processing power internally in the modem than
> the computer they were connected to. (The Trailblazers had an internal
> Motorola 68030 processor, playing like a DSP.)
It was great to leave the speaker turned on when the 'Blazer connected.
The noises they produced while analyzing the transmissions qualities of
the circuit were really impressive. We used to call it "The Rhino
Mating Call".
They also spoofed UUCP, Kermit, Xmodem, and maybe a few other things so
they could better optimize the packet size over the phone circuit.
"Swingman" <[email protected]> writes:
>"Dave Hinz" wrote in message
>
>> Dave "Been there, done that, got the 1200 Baud Hayes Smartmodem" Hinz
>
>That was high tech, dude ... my Fido BBS was first run on a 300 baud "hayes
>compatible". I clearly remember when I hit the big time with a US Robotics
>9600, along with 4 MB of memory in the box.
Youse guys and your high tech. My first modem was 110-baud
acoustic coupler (you know, stick the handset in the rubber
cups) connected through current-loop interface to a Western
Electric ASR-33 (complete with paper tape punch/reader).
Getting that decwriter with the 300-baud AC modem was a dream.
scott