Infocipher receivers

From: John Foust <jfoust_at_threedee.com>
Date: Fri Jun 8 20:40:23 2001

At 07:36 PM 6/8/01 -0400, Tom Owad wrote:
>In a box of Apple II equipment from a school I found three of what I
>understand to be Infocipher receivers. Is anbody familiar with these?
>Do any services still exist that use them? I read the devices
>communicate at 9600bps and the one is even labeled "Desk Top Data
>Demodulator". Are these really much different than cable modems?

I've got one, too. I used it on an Amiga. They had PC software
for them, too. They were quite cool devices. I never figured
out why they didn't catch on. 9600 baud, 24 hours a day, in a
compressed and packeted stream. Megabytes a day, back in the days
of 2400 baud modems.

The software showed a menu of message forums to read, some
user-driven via a dial-up BBS on a mainframe, but most were
news feeds and wire service copy.

There was also a menu of files that you could download.
You selected what you wanted, and presto, it would show up on
your hard disk within 24 hours as those packets flew by.

Mine had an extra card that decrypted the 15-minute delay stock
ticker. The devices were cheap - maybe $100 in 1989 - and
there were no further service charges unless you had the stock
ticker.

I seem to remember that the entire Rogers cable network
broadcast the data, and I could get the data here in SE Wisconsin
even though the modems were not advertised locally. Sometime
within the last three years, the data feed stopped. I think
I have notes about it somewhere.

- John
Received on Fri Jun 08 2001 - 20:40:23 BST