Josh Richards "jrichard"

Wow, how time does fly. We now have, at least in the US and elsewhere, our first generation of Internet users that have no idea what a real modem sounds like. For these folks, this is the closest they'll ever get to one.

While I'm not as old as the photo above by any means, my first modem was an external U.S. Robotics 2400 bps (generously loaned to me by a friend's father whom I later bought a more affordable Gould 1200 bps modem from), so I suppose, in a way, even I was late to the game.

Sure, with Caller ID we still have modems in our phones (at least until end-to-end SIP can do away with all that) and xDSL is still really a glorified analog modem but they are stealthy. Poll a random nine year old on the street with a modem carrier audio sample or ask if they've ever cursed when they forgot and set ATM2 instead of ATM0 or ATM1 and you'll get a blank look (and probably a scream for mommy to come and take them away from the scary crazy guy though a few smart top-of-their-class nine year olds, just starting their introduction classes to CCIE certification of course, might think I'm talking about this which is at least in the right vein).

I've yet to see an xDSL modem that has a speaker (let alone supports the AT command set) and rarely do I hear the caller ID carrier unless I'm on a really cheap phone and pick up the phone fast enough.

Maybe we can bring it back in vogue by customizing our mobile phone ring tone to sound like the good old days. And, demanding that xDSL modem vendors, add speakers. On other hand, there aren't too many of these around anymore either. And, man, were those things slow.

AT
OK
ATZ
OK
ATM0
OK

-jr