Re: But is UseNet "Social Media"??

On Mon, 2 Feb 2026 08:54:22 -0500, Paul wrote:

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

Faxing via modem was fun. This was because standalone fax machines had
bloody awful scanners that pushed the contrast to maximum on
everything which, while fine for regular text, turned photographic
imagery into a murky, blobby mess.

Whereas if the fax data was generated on a computer, you had access to
nice dithering algorithms that did a creditable job of reproducing
gradations of tone (at least in greyscale). And this still looked
pretty good on the receiving fax machine.

I loved the oohs and ahs and “How did you do that?” responses. ;)