Around 1979 a friend’s dad, who worked with computers, had a setup at his house that allowed him to log into his company’s mainframe over a 300 baud modem (it was only plastic and metal, not wood, leather and brass however). My friend and I were able to play a text-based Star trek game where you’d rather tediously move around from quadrant to quadrant zapping Klingons and visiting starbases.
I personally preferred playing what must have been Trek73 on a computer that had no screen, just a printer. That game had you meeting and enemy ship, and you would both pound the snot out of each other until someone’s shields gave out.
My first modem was one or two steps up from that one. It was 300 baud, but direct connect, which meant I had to dial the remote number on a phone, then when I heard tone, hit the connect switch on the modem and (quietly!) hang up the phone.
That was a really neat video - thanks for sharing!
I used to play the old text games too - frustrating yet fun - but I don’t recall the star trek ones. Gosh darnit I missed all the fun!
What I find the oddest (and, in a way, scariest) thing about this video is that the RS232 port was developed prior to 1964.
No lie, just yesterday I was troubleshooting a piece of modern medical equipment (designed less than ten years ago, built less than three) that not only still had an RS232 port, but was DB25 no less.
That’s a piece of modern medical equipment using a technology/communications protocol that is 50 years old.
The good stuff endures. No worse than tip and ring on twisted pair, which is not only over 100 years old, but the original technology has been flexible enough to support VDSL data at over 50 meg.
How many times has USB been revised in the past 15 years? Do you think Thunderbolt will still be around in 15 years? How about eSATA? I’d be willing to bet that tip and ring and RS232 will still be with us.
