Re: But is UseNet "Social Media"??

On Mon, 2/2/2026 6:39 AM, Carlos E.R. wrote:

> In the subject of winmodems, I bought one by mistake. At that time I 
> double booted to Linux, and that blasted thing would not work in Linux at all. 
> I think I resold it to a friend what was a happy Windows user.

Modems were never a lot of fun at the best of times.

I had two modems with datapumps, one each from the different
modem factions. If I was "dialing into a Livingston front end",
there was a modem for that, and there was another modem
for the other flavors of front ends (modem pool).

I think if you mixed the wrong modem types together,
there would be a spiral of death, where the datarate
would drop, until the datarate dropped so low, it would
do a disconnect. And this is because if conditions improve,
the bins that weren't being used, would not be recommissioned.
And thus, a connection could only go downhill.

My modems may have been flashed once or twice. I needed to
flash them, for them to run at 56K. And I think a typical
good day with the modem, was 43.3 or so. The line to the
CO was likely too long, to support more than that. They used
to connect a tank of dry nitrogen to our "wire bundle"
in the manhole, and leave the gas running for a couple
days, to "dry the lines". And this would help bring my line
back to 43.3K again. I would occasionally have it drop all
the way to 33.6K because of line conditions.

I had to disconnect the household phone wiring, drill a wire up
through the computer room floor, and run a brand new phone wire
up into the computer room. And that's how I got the ability
to run at 43.3 . You had to fight every inch of
the way with that crap.

My manager at work, when he had to debug his damn modem,
there was corrosion in some phone wires where they passed
through the foundation wall.

"Good riddance, to bad rubbish."

I don't recollect anyone lamenting that their modem was
in the junk room now :-)

   Paul