Modem Collection

From: Sam Ismail <dastar_at_crl.com>
Date: Sat Jul 12 03:50:06 1997

On Fri, 11 Jul 1997, Roger Ivie wrote:

> > Just curious (again!) if anyone is collecting the early modems used on
> > computers and what might have been the earliest commercial phone modem.
>
> I'm not doing it on purpose, but I find myself unable to let go of this
> Novation CAT modem that I dredged up a few years ago...

Are you referring to the AppleCat? That was an awesome modem. It could
do MF, tone-detection (with an add-on chip) and could also play 3-voice
music through the phone (or was it 2-voice)? I have a Novation modem
called the AutoCat 212 which is a piece of dung. I swear to almighty god
that this thing produced line noise based on my brain wave activity. Now
check this out, if I was looking at the modem, it would start spewing
line noise. If I would look away when it was transferring data, it would
work fine. I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP. Very weird. And frustrating. I
had to put up with dirty file transfers and modem sessions for about 3
years until I finally got another modem (couldn't afford a nice 2400 baud).
Anyway, it was a 1200 baud, no DTMF dialing (only pulse but not hayes
compatible, you had to write a special driver for it since no terminal
software on the apple seemed to support it) or you had to manually dial.

Sam
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Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete, Writer, Jackass
Received on Sat Jul 12 1997 - 03:50:06 BST