[HN Gopher] 95 bits per second
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95 bits per second
Author : pabs3
Score : 29 points
Date : 2023-09-15 02:08 UTC (20 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (popey.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (popey.com)
| NikkiA wrote:
| I too used the "disks by post" service (in the UK) that the
| article describes, I've mentioned it before on HN too, but my
| investigation hasn't turned up the name of the company/catalog
| either, but I _am_ fairly sure that it was a franchise operation
| based on the work of the ASP - "Association of Shareware
| Professionals" which was a US based organisation formed by a
| collection of shareware authors in 1987, and produced such a mail
| order catalog of software that you could order bulk shareware
| from.
| dreamlayers wrote:
| I see no evidence that the amazing increase in data transfer
| rates has increased people's happiness. That is because happiness
| is a measure of something else, more like how well you're using
| the opportunities available at the time.
| icedchai wrote:
| I'm pretty sure I was happier with 9600 baud back in 1991.
| Everything felt so new and exciting. The upgrade from 2400 to
| 9600 bps felt huge. The upgrade from 300 megabits to a gigabit?
| I hardly noticed.
| utopcell wrote:
| Meh: pigeons are still the fastest way to transfer data [1]
| within 600 miles.
|
| [1] https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/a-pigeon-can-
| deli...
| hinkley wrote:
| Never underestimate the bandwidth of a stationwagon full of
| [data] tapes hurtling down the highway. -Tannenbaum
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| Ham radio community is still full of interesting protocols from
| sstv ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow-scan_television ) to
| "hell" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellschreiber ... at
| whopping 14 baud for slow-hell :) )
| petesergeant wrote:
| > An order form at the back of the catalog could be filled in,
| stuffed in an envelope with a postal order or cheque, then poked
| into the nearest post-box.
|
| Or indeed with stamps, in a few cases, which was a God-send for
| an 11 year old me who didn't have easy access to postal orders or
| cheques but could purchase a book of stamps anywhere.
| mikeInAlaska wrote:
| I remember working for hours and hours, failing, to get a 32kb
| transfer to work between two Commodore 64's with 1650 Automodems.
| I wish I could remember the app, it would be a nostalgia overload
| to see a screenshot of it again.
| hinkley wrote:
| Part of my evolution as a modem owner was downloading small files
| I was pretty sure I could download before getting kicked off,
| running out of small files that were interesting, and having to
| progressively ramp up to zmodem and late nights to just barely
| finish downloading a file before timing out if I logged straight
| in and didn't do anything else, and then nobody in my family
| picked up the phone to make a phone call.
|
| Even for shorter files, if they picked up the phone at 80% that
| was it for the day (and at the time restarting a transfer either
| didn't exist or was too esoteric for me)
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| Almost positive that zmodem could continue an interrupted file
| transfer but there were quirks that you may have encountered
| that prevented it from doing it automatically.
| hinkley wrote:
| I suspect my stumbling block was 'can you get the other side
| to play along'.
|
| It's been so long that I have probably forgotten the finer
| details. For all I recall now, I may have spent 3 days
| downloading a single file and decided that was enough effort
| for one program.
|
| On those BBSes or other services there was always something
| else you'd want to be doing with your allotted time. Skipping
| one day was one thing, skipping half a week was something
| else entirely.
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(page generated 2023-09-15 23:00 UTC)