BitWrangler wrote on 2023-02-08, 00:09:

Trash picker alert, 20ns 4x64 SRAM "cache" spotted on 14.4 Fax modems, guess you'll need to find two of them and be okay with sub 33Mhz use... https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fax_M … Baud_AT-Bus.jpg

But wouldn't harvesting the chips mean my prized collection of modems I've gathered over the years without even trying/wanting now become useless? 😜

Modems are such an oddball thing to collect. Are they ever a useful form of networking? Maybe if a game only has a null modem option?

chinny22 wrote on 2023-02-08, 12:03:

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-02-08, 00:09:

Trash picker alert, 20ns 4x64 SRAM "cache" spotted on 14.4 Fax modems, guess you'll need to find two of them and be okay with sub 33Mhz use... https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fax_M … Baud_AT-Bus.jpg

But wouldn't harvesting the chips mean my prized collection of modems I've gathered over the years without even trying/wanting now become useless? 😜

Pretty sure that it would suddenly give them an actual purpose.

"Why do you have a modem collection?"

"I keep them for parts. See... I took those cache chips off a few years ago."

"Oh... neat."

🤣

(Sorta kidding... if you collect them you'll probably have one of the few modem collections decades from now.)

Dial-up modems were useful for connecting into the Internet when broadband networking wasn't common and web sites were much simpler. I'm quite nostalgic about the sounds it does when attempting to connect. 😁

I know what they were used for. I'm just wondering if there is any good use case for them now.

Currently, dial-up modem usage is niche and only found in places where broadband networking is still very expensive or not available.

For null modem setting, serial ports are suitable, and it may not waste a motherboard slot just for that. 😉

Yah, I went through modems a bit faster than CPUs and a bit slower than floppy disks... the reason was, connect time was metered in the "good" old days, so the faster the modem was, the more money you saved on downloads, in theory, maybe you'd just spend the same half hour online and do twice as much. Anyway, while you'd ponder if it was really worth upgrading your DX33 to a DX2, you would leap on the first reasonable priced 28.8k to replace your 14.4... Meaning that modems through the 1990s were the per-piece biggest cause of ewaste I think, the most frequently upgraded part. I know I went 9,600 to 14.4 to 28.8 to 33.6 to 56k in one system, almost one a year.

I keep an eye on the whereabouts of a couple of 56k hardware modems in case modemmy function ever actually required again (Though all our copper is in a rotten state in this city, so I'm hosed anyway) but there's not a lot of point in saving anything very inferior for retro use.... Though yah, curators of a proper modem collection will have a rare thing by the time we've done junking or ignoring them.

edit: in case you wonder why I bothered going 28k to 33.... what happened was, I got this white box 28k external, and even with 16550A uart I could never connect to the darn thing at more than the 56k serial rate, and it appeared to have no compression or other features so it was a straight ~3kB per second on everything. This when I had a spectacularly good 14.4k which would get 5-7kB throughput on stuff that compressed, though on binary zips it was the straight 1.5kB/sec... anyway ploddiest 28k imaginable, even thought of putting the 14.4 back in several times... a deal came along on the 33k and I got that, and was much happier, though it only seemed to restore the compression rates of the 14.4 not do a huge amount better, maybe I saw 10kB once in a while. Then it was a weird protocol and when the 56ks came online most ISP were dropping it back to 28k support and under those protocols it was down to 5-6kB compressed throughput and the 3.5kB/sec on zipped bins. Then finally when 56k settled down I got one and got the 15-20k compressed throughput rate and ~6kB/sec bin.zip.

Best modems to have was USR external or true modem internal. Not those winmodem.

Had external 14.4 and was excellent.

Cheers,

pentiumspeed wrote on 2023-02-08, 23:53:

Best modems to have was USR external or true modem internal. Not those winmodem.

Had external 14.4 and was excellent.

Cheers,

I would say that there was nothing really wrong with winmodems as long as the CPU wass strong enough. And once they became a thing - pretty much everybody had something like K6-2 or Pentium II anyway. They served their purpose of bringing a cheap, hassle-free faxmodem connectivity in the late Win98/early XP era to homes and offices and I would say they did it pretty well too. Personally I had really fast broadband connection at home since around 1998 so I never had one in my home computer (in office - yes) but I wouldn't really mind it if I had to use it (I tested around 5 different models lately and they just work like any other modem, and being PCI you don't have to care about allocating the system resources to them).

Kahenraz wrote on 2023-02-08, 16:26:

I know what they were used for. I'm just wondering if there is any good use case for them now.

One word: fax.

Japan, being the birthplace of many high-tech gadgets, still keeps fax machines in many daily business practices. I've read an article on a Chinese forum about a Chinese student got admitted by a Japanese college and, when he applied for a dormitory affiliated with the college, the management ONLY accept application via fax or in person. Being a post-millennial (Gen Z?) who had never used a fax machine in his lifetime, he searched his entire hometown yet found no fax machine. In the end he found a proxy service online in a first-tier city and spent nearly RMB¥100 and countless hours for just a few pages.

HanJammer wrote on 2023-02-09, 01:34:

pentiumspeed wrote on 2023-02-08, 23:53:

Best modems to have was USR external or true modem internal. Not those winmodem.

Had external 14.4 and was excellent.

Cheers,

I would say that there was nothing really wrong with winmodems as long as the CPU wass strong enough. And once they became a thing - pretty much everybody had something like K6-2 or Pentium II anyway. They served their purpose of bringing a cheap, hassle-free faxmodem connectivity in the late Win98/early XP era to homes and offices and I would say they did it pretty well too. Personally I had really fast broadband connection at home since around 1998 so I never had one in my home computer (in office - yes) but I wouldn't really mind it if I had to use it (I tested around 5 different models lately and they just work like any other modem, and being PCI you don't have to care about allocating the system resources to them).

As a Slackware Linux user at the time I HATED those damn things..

dormcat wrote on 2023-02-09, 03:12:

Kahenraz wrote on 2023-02-08, 16:26:

I know what they were used for. I'm just wondering if there is any good use case for them now.

One word: fax.

Japan, being the birthplace of many high-tech gadgets, still keeps fax machines in many daily business practices. I've read an article on a Chinese forum about a Chinese student got admitted by a Japanese college and, when he applied for a dormitory affiliated with the college, the management ONLY accept application via fax or in person. Being a post-millennial (Gen Z?) who had never used a fax machine in his lifetime, he searched his entire hometown yet found no fax machine. In the end he found a proxy service online in a first-tier city and spent nearly RMB¥100 and countless hours for just a few pages.

I'm not sure how it works in other countries, but in the US we would still need to have an active land-line phone service to send or receive a fax using a telephone-based fax machine or modem. In most places, a standard land line will cost as much or more than high speed cable or FIOS internet service because they force you to pay tons of fees. Imagine paying $50-$100 (339-677 RMB) per month just to maintain a dedicated fax line in 2023. 😮

You can use something like this to send faxes completely free or for a very small fee:
https://faxzero.com/
Or for receiving faxes...
https://www.office.fedex.com/default/fax-services
Or both...
https://app.hellofax.com/info/pricing

(I have not used any of these because I have never had to send or receive a fax in my life.)

Those modern solutions are far far more cost effective than using a retro PC with a modem (or even a standard fax machine) unless you have a specialized business that absolute must maintain a 1990s-style Fax setup... which not sure is something that really exists.

So, I would say that modems are also nearly 100% useless for this purpose in 2023 as well.

It seems these are still the only uses for dial-up modems:
1. Direct telephone line connected retro gaming... which I know nothing about. Probably never as good of an option as just using a network card, but it's at least something.
2. Setting up a working emulated dial-up service\network at home using a bunch of modern gear. 100% pointless, but could be interesting just for nostalgia's sake.
3. Keeping especially interesting looking ones on display as conversation pieces
4. Collecting them simply because they are some day going to be all gone, and hey... you might as well be the one to have a modem collection to pass down to your children, right? 😊
5. Any of the above, while also keeping them for parts since they often have a wide variety of components on them, especially the older ones

I was just making a sarcastic comment but hey its kicked off an interesting discussion!
I've actually only got 2 modems. Boring Gateway internal modem in a C400 I picked up and doubt was ever used.
My NetComm Automodem 1234 It's only 2400bps. A hand me down from dads friend who worked in the factory. Would have been VERY expensive when new but I got it in '95 when it was already obsolete. Still I joined a few BBS's until getting an internet.
When we did get the internet we got a generic 33.6 external modem (I was very insistent on it been external) which my parents were still using up to about 5 years as they couldn't get ADSL. The modem finally died so they upgraded to satellite which even with government cashbacks was more expensive then ADSL. Luckily they were included in the NBN (optic fibre) rollout, finally.

Re faxes about once every 2-3 years someone will need to send or receive one at work. Some agency with outdated rules. Typically this will involve IT (me) working out how to set the copier to send receive faxes again send the fax and forget within 5 minutes 😜

Now I have flashbacks. Cheap 'soft' 56k modems nagging about missing MMX extentions. Motorola SM56 anyone?

I have an ISA 33.6Kbps modem by Dynalink as a novelty, mostly because my first modem was a 14.4Kbps ISA modem by Dynalink. I hope to find one some day. My second and longest used modem was an external 28.8Kbps by Supra which I used to run a BBS on for a few years. I eventually replaced it with a 56Kbps PCI modem when I upgraded to a Pentium II. I really hope to find a working specimen of that as well.

appiah4 wrote on 2023-02-09, 12:27:

I eventually replaced it with a 56Kbps PCI modem when I upgraded to a Pentium II. I really hope to find a working specimen of that as well.

Any particular model? I have a few 56k PCI modems, maybe one of these is the one you are looking for?

BTW 33.6 is effectively the hobbyist speed limit now anyway, max speed two consumer 56k modems will connect is ~33.6 (I have heard certain combos might push it to 35.xx) but a true 56k connection is asymmetric needing a high spendy ISP grade modem with a special method of line connection at one end for a consumer 56k to talk to. So unless a hobbyist has a ton of disposable income, because this is never gonna pay for itself in 2023, he'll be setting up retro BBS and dial in game servers on regular landlines and regular modems, and you'll get ~33.6

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-02-09, 15:36:

BTW 33.6 is effectively the hobbyist speed limit now anyway, max speed two consumer 56k modems will connect is ~33.6 (I have heard certain combos might push it to 35.xx) but a true 56k connection is asymmetric needing a high spendy ISP grade modem with a special method of line connection at one end for a consumer 56k to talk to. So unless a hobbyist has a ton of disposable income, because this is never gonna pay for itself in 2023, he'll be setting up retro BBS and dial in game servers on regular landlines and regular modems, and you'll get ~33.6

What about bonded modems at both ends? I've been meaning to get round to trying that experiment.

For diallup, they used to call that a "shotgun" setup, like a double barrelled shotgun I guess.

And there is compression. I'm remembering I had a download speed of 14kB/sec on a 56k connection, downloading some bitmap file.