# The detritus of abandoned technologies **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 15, 2024, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-detritus-of-abandoned-technologies/1002929 "2024-06-15T23:07:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2024, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-detritus-of-abandoned-technologies/1002929/61 "2024-06-19T21:56:06Z")
Anyone recall those acoustic modems? My first connection from home to McGill’s mainframe was with a teletype machine borrowed from a colleague going on sabbatical through a 300 baud acoustic modem. Then the colleague returned and I bought an original IBM-PC. It had a serial number about 140,000, but they had started at 100,000 so it was about the 40 thousandth made. Hooked up through the same acoustic modem. A year or two later, I got a 1200 baud card that went inside the computer. I just kept the modem, I don’t know why. A couple years later we hired a Russian mathematician and I helped her set up a computer. It didn’t have an internal modem so I offerred to lend her my acoustic modem. On one condition, I told her. “That I not give it back?” You got it in one. I wonder what she did with it. Then I got a 2400 baud modem, then a DSL line. That went to my wife’s computer which was on the second floor in a BR abandoned by one of my kids and we had to pay a guy to run an ethernet wire to my computer in the LR. Sometime in the early 2000s we finally a Wi-Fi connection in the house. And I didn’t get a new Wi-Fi modem till we moved to this condo 5 years ago. In the meantime, from my office I used something called a Gandalf Box to connect to the McGill mainframe. Then they wired the whole building (and presumably all the buildings) with ethernet. I am not sure when they put Wi-Fi everywhere, but just a month ago I got an email from the computer centre that they would no longer have service on the ethernet. At COMDEX, 1982, I saw an incredible gadget. It was an automatic diskette changer. It held, I think, five diskettes. On software command it would remove the diskette from one of the drives and insert one of the five into the vacated slot, putting the just removed diskette into the vacated position. At the same show, another manufacturer was demoing a 5 MB hard drive that fit into a 5 1/4 diskette slot for “only” $1500. But this was clearly the wave of the future; in less than 2 years, the PC-2 with a 10 MB hard drive came out. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2024, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-detritus-of-abandoned-technologies/1002929/62 "2024-06-19T22:02:20Z")
I just Googled it: One of those old 8" floppies could hold 80 KB. For comparison: One page of printed text, single-spaced, 12 point, monotype, is about 1 KB. Which means that, if you can write at the equivalent of 1.3 point, you could fit more on one of those disks with a pencil than you can with a drive. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2024, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-detritus-of-abandoned-technologies/1002929/63 "2024-06-19T22:28:25Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > Anyone recall those acoustic modems? My first connection from home to McGill’s mainframe was with a teletype machine borrowed from a colleague going on sabbatical through a 300 baud acoustic modem. 300 baud? How advanced! The first acoustic coupler I had (borrowed from my brother who was a prof at the university I was attending) was 110 baud (10 cps). Later on I borrowed a gadget with an integrated modem and keyboard that could hook up to a TV set and allow access from home to the university’s timesharing PDP-10 computer. It was probably 300 baud. After that came modems that plugged into the PC backbone and ran as fast as 56 Kbps. On a good day. Broadband internet followed not long after. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2024, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-detritus-of-abandoned-technologies/1002929/64 "2024-06-19T22:37:54Z")
Freshman year of college in 1984, my Commodore 64 had only a 300 baud modem. I could read faster than it could download text. ---
**Author:** ![phs3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8491ac/32.png) [@phs3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phs3)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2024, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-detritus-of-abandoned-technologies/1002929/65 "2024-06-19T23:02:28Z")
During the pandemic I culled my Closet of Obsolete Bits. My favorite item was an add-on EISA parallel card. I figured neither technology was particularly likely to come back… OTOH someone, somewhere, probably in some factory, would have KILLED for that card as a spare. Despite 25+ years of Internet “disintermediation”, it wasn’t worth the effort to try to figure out where to list it. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2024, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-detritus-of-abandoned-technologies/1002929/66 "2024-06-20T02:04:30Z")
eBay is a good option. ---
**Author:** ![phs3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8491ac/32.png) [@phs3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phs3)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2024, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-detritus-of-abandoned-technologies/1002929/67 "2024-06-20T02:36:40Z")
Of course, just not worth the effort. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2024, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-detritus-of-abandoned-technologies/1002929/68 "2024-06-20T03:23:04Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > just a month ago I got an email from the computer centre that they would no longer have service on the ethernet. That’s a shame. I trust cabling far more than I do WiFi. If I was building my home, I would cable the hell out of it. Reliable and reassuring. ---
**Author:** ![Paintcharge](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/paintcharge/32/7946_2.png) [@Paintcharge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paintcharge)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2024, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-detritus-of-abandoned-technologies/1002929/69 "2024-06-20T14:59:25Z")
I just looked at my desk…I have a container of writeable CDs. I no longer own a thing that can even take a CD, well my 2007 truck can, but it can’t write to them. Also it appears I have an iphone 3. Perhaps some culling is in order. ---
**Author:** ![Pork\_Rind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pork_rind/32/111_2.png) [@Pork\_Rind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pork_Rind)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2024, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-detritus-of-abandoned-technologies/1002929/70 "2024-06-20T15:11:23Z")
No no no. Cat-6 where the electricity runs **both** directions! ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2024, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-detritus-of-abandoned-technologies/1002929/71 "2024-06-20T15:22:23Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > I trust cabling far more than I do WiFi. Me too. In the places I don’t have good CAT6 already wired, I’m repurposing old cable TV wiring (which the previous owner has wired ubiquitously) to connect to the main network closet via MOCA. > **[Multimedia over Coax Alliance](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimedia_over_Coax_Alliance)** > > The Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA) is an international standards consortium that publishes specifications for networking over coaxial cable. The technology was originally developed to distribute IP television in homes using existing cabling, but is now used as a general-purpose Ethernet link where it is inconvenient or undesirable to replace existing coaxial cable with optical fiber or twisted pair cabling. > MoCA 1.0 was approved in 2006, MoCA 1.1 in April 2010, MoCA 2.0 in June 2010, and M... Fast, stable, reliable. I reserve WiFi for mobile devices or very low priority fixed devices (or those with only WiFi capabilities, like streaming sticks). ---
**Author:** ![minor7flat5](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/minor7flat5/32/258_2.png) [@minor7flat5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minor7flat5)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2024, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-detritus-of-abandoned-technologies/1002929/72 "2024-06-20T15:49:41Z")
Yep. I have plenty of cat-6 running throughout my house. I use Power over Ethernet (POE) to run my security cameras and other IOT devices, such as the doorbell or my home automation server. Can’t do that with wireless (yet). Also, I have the ability to run 10GB so I can do video editing off of my Synology NAS using my iMac in another room. Cable still has a place in our world, for the near future. ---
**Author:** ![LurkMeister](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3da27b/32.png) [@LurkMeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LurkMeister)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2024, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-detritus-of-abandoned-technologies/1002929/73 "2024-06-20T17:21:21Z")
I still have a Zip Drive and a stack of discs for it. I remember about ten or so years ago l searched online to see if there was any way to hook it up to my computer so I could check the contents of the discs to see if there was anything I might want to copy onto one of my external hard drives. That was several computers and operating systems ago, so even if I had found something (which I think I had) it probably wouldn’t work now. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2024, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-detritus-of-abandoned-technologies/1002929/74 "2024-06-20T17:24:08Z")
Here is a USB Zip drive on Amazon that’s purported to work > **[Amazon.com: Iomega 100MB USB-Powered Drive Zip : Electronics](https://www.amazon.com/Iomega-100MB-USB-Powered-Drive-Zip/dp/B00005U7RB)** > > The package includes a New Zip 100 USB Powered and a USB cable. Original CD can be provided upon request. ---
**Author:** ![jnglmassiv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f07891/32.png) [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2024, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-detritus-of-abandoned-technologies/1002929/75 "2024-06-20T17:38:12Z")
An old timer IT guy I used to work with referred to his ‘Chamber of Obsolescence,’ a steel cabinet where he kept the EEPROM eraser, spines for the document binder, mystery keys, the dial telephone with a real ringading bell, cartridges for copiers long gone, sleeves for the broken laminating machine, thermal printheads that ‘might just be dirty,’ the AT keyboard and serial mouse that still come in handy every once in a while. He’s passed away now but I use the term in the very same way today. ---
**Author:** ![Pork\_Rind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pork_rind/32/111_2.png) [@Pork\_Rind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pork_Rind)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2024, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-detritus-of-abandoned-technologies/1002929/76 "2024-06-20T19:29:12Z")
I have a small number of 44 and 88 megabyte [SyQuest discs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SyQuest_Technology) in a box in the attic. One I accidentally liberated from a job when I left after I graduated from college. Another was abandoned at a subsequent workplace by my predecessor. I’ve frequently thought about finding a drive just to see what’s on those, but then remember the ‘fun’ of messing with those giant SCSI connectors and the associated terminators and decide that the contents will just have to remain a mystery. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-detritus-of-abandoned-technologies/1002929.md?page=3)