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How did dial-up internet work?


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2 hours ago, OLD CS1 said:

What I found was these companies would co-locate their dial-up equipment wherever they could.

Strangely enough, I've actually seen an instance where the telco does this.  My employer at the time had an office in a building where the MPOE was run into a closet on the ground floor.  This happened to be shared with the MDF for the building, so all tenants had access to it.

 

The telco was using one wall in it as a concentration point for both T1s and individual PRIs in the area, which were the only connectivity available in about a 6-block radius.  None of this was caged from tenants' equipment: you could literally walk in and touch every circuit they had in there.

 

I asked the leasing company about it at one point, and they said it was part of a legacy agreement with SBC.  Apparently some local ordinance or other prevented them from locating their equipment on the street in that area due to flooding (this went way back to the immediate-postwar POTS days, apparently), so they rented out space in the MPOE and pulled everything to there.

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On 5/9/2021 at 5:09 PM, The Usotsuki said:

Heh, PINE was the first e-mail client I used...and I still use it today! It has a few newer features and it's actually called ALPINE, but it's the same program.

 

Hah, I also use Alpine - for my Gmail account!

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29 minutes ago, Frozone212 said:

Ear grating, lobe destroying, just a few synonyms to describe this horror

Picking up the phone to make a call and hearing this sound meant you had about 10 seconds to pretend like you had no idea why someone just got kicked off the internet. It basically sounds like a fax machine having a mini-stroke.

 

 

Edited by Draxxon
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6 hours ago, Draxxon said:

Picking up the phone to make a call and hearing this sound meant you had about 10 seconds to pretend like you had no idea why someone just got kicked off the internet. It basically sounds like a fax machine having a mini-stroke.

For those who are visual learners.

 

dialup-final.thumb.png.caa3e9a9e63e6f310c12f66226b41230.png

 

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17 hours ago, GoldLeader said:

It Sucked!

 

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair."

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On 7/23/2021 at 6:00 PM, OLD CS1 said:

 

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair."

Doesn’t that apply to the Internet today as well?

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5 hours ago, x=usr(1536) said:

Quoted for truth.

 

It started with the September That Never Ended and just went downhill from there.

To be more fair with my statement, like any convenience, the Internet and access to it, has become one of those things which is ubiquitous and taken advantage of.  Far too many people cannot function without some kind of technology, most of which requires the Internet now.  Far too many people expect Internet access to be provided wherever they go, and become indignant if it is not available.  God forbid they use their own data plan, they require people and establishments provide additional infrastructure to support their habits and, literally, addictions.

 

Probably NSFW:

Spoiler

56k-porn-demotivational-posters.jpg.6805be2559eb275ed1d5a9e6c40dc6c0.jpg

 

 

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1 hour ago, OLD CS1 said:

To be more fair with my statement, like any convenience, the Internet and access to it, has become one of those things which is ubiquitous and taken advantage of.  Far too many people cannot function without some kind of technology, most of which requires the Internet now.  Far too many people expect Internet access to be provided wherever they go, and become indignant if it is not available.  God forbid they use their own data plan, they require people and establishments provide additional infrastructure to support their habits and, literally, addictions.

Agreed.  I've received some rather dumbfounded replies when calling someone back a day or so after missing their call and explaining that I left my phone in the car so had no idea that they'd called.  To them, the concept of not being permanently in possession of some sort of always-online device  - and not missing it when it's not there - is so alien that they can hardly conceive of it.

 

Frankly, anyone who has worked in any aspect of IT long enough to understand the demands it places on them should also realise the value of switching off and doing something that does not involve connectivity of any sort.  As the understanding of what privacy is continues to diminish, however, I expect this will happen less and less.

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20 minutes ago, x=usr(1536) said:

I've received some rather dumbfounded replies when calling someone back a day or so after missing their call and explaining that I left my phone in the car so had no idea that they'd called.

This drives my daughter nuts.  Even moreso when I remind her that I have a home phone she can call.  I give my mobile number to a very select few people, instead using my home phone and office phone.  The latter I forward to my mobile when I am out and about.  (People get rather indignant that they cannot text those numbers.)

 

21 minutes ago, x=usr(1536) said:

Frankly, anyone who has worked in any aspect of IT long enough to understand the demands it places on them should also realise the value of switching off and doing something that does not involve connectivity of any sort.

It astonishes me how few of my colleagues get this.  They are just as attached to their phones.  Also, check this out:

 

https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/275332/text-vs-talk-gets-millennials-attention.html

 

Another part of this study, which was not represented here, is the number of Millennials who consider unexpected phone calls to be rude.  They do not like how disruptive the calls are, apparently forgetting phones can be silenced.  They also do not like when people do not answer text messages, but at the same time prefer text messages because they can be ignored.

 

I do, however, also fall under this category for appointments and deliveries,

Quote

Of the 30% of millennials that receive texts from companies, 75% find text reminders for appointments, deliveries, payments, promotions, and surveys helpful.

But once these companies get hold of your mobile number, they use it for f-ing everything.  I had prescription reminders from a pharmacy, but they also wanted to send me coupons, allergy alerts, and other shit which I could not opt out of, so I told them they had to remove my number or I would move all my prescriptions.

 

But, back to the Internet focus, when I worked ISP support we would use AIM or ICQ, but as I was busy almost all the time they were often set Away.  Many of my friends would get upset with me if I did not answer their messages right away.  There is a common theme there.

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16 hours ago, OLD CS1 said:

Far too many people expect Internet access to be provided wherever they go, and become indignant if it is not available.  God forbid they use their own data plan, they require people and establishments provide additional infrastructure to support their habits and, literally, addictions.

No different than how a junkie behaves when they can't get their fix.

 

I think this is a serious social problem that not enough people are talking about.   I see kids who won't do anything that isn't online.  How are they going to pick up skills needed for the real world?  how much gets neglected because people are on their phones all the time?   Connecting to people digitally is not the same as connecting in person.

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OMG it is so much worse than I thought!

 

Quote

I recently learned that iPhone users can "like" your picture messages. The process goes like this: you send a picture to someone with an iPhone, they "like" it, and you get a text messages back that says "liked an image."


Why? Why?! Does the future include "likes" during phone calls?

Go ahead, call your son to tell him he is wasting his life and get your ass ratioed.  I. DARE. YOU.

 

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29 minutes ago, OLD CS1 said:

OMG it is so much worse than I thought!

 

Seriously….does everyone need automatic feedback on an image that was sent? And what if I don’t “like” it? Will the person on the sending end be in a tizzy over not getting a response? 
 

I hope there are other responses one can do like “dislike”, “WTF” or maybe a middle finger emoji? I dunno….

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38 minutes ago, Gamemoose said:

I hope there are other responses one can do like “dislike”, “WTF” or maybe a middle finger emoji? I dunno….

Just checked, and yep, The Bird is part of the emoji set on an iPhone.

 

It's also part of the emoji set available here; search them for the term 'finger'.

 

?

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5 hours ago, x=usr(1536) said:

Just checked, and yep, The Bird is part of the emoji set on an iPhone.

Right now they show up as black squares on my phone, but soon I will be able to see them, much to my chagrin.  Notwithstanding, I can take an emoji... but a LIKE... I mean, like, yikes.

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8 hours ago, zzip said:

I think this is a serious social problem that not enough people are talking about.

So much ingrained resistance to discussing the topic. Get looked upon as some backward tech-averse weirdo, sometimes. In one ear, out the other.

 

8 hours ago, zzip said:

I see kids who won't do anything that isn't online.

And the more affluent they are, the more tech they have, the more they bury themselves in it. At least in my part of town. Anything requiring even a modicum of thought is considered too hard and results in groans.

 

The next door neighbor has kids that are capable of going through an entire meal, outdoors, in a festival setting without uttering a single word. Parents have to go down a list of items and interpret grunts as yes or no. Do you want this, this, or this. All the while interpreting inflections in noise. Helpless babies, at ages 16+. Their faces stuck in the phone all the time.

 

8 hours ago, zzip said:

 How are they going to pick up skills needed for the real world? 

I don't know.. And who will maintain this house of cards for them?

 

8 hours ago, zzip said:

how much gets neglected because people are on their phones all the time?

A lot. It's pretty hard to compete with the sped-up world of instantgram and tickertock.

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All of the modern social media platforms have one thing in common, which is why they are all terrible:

 

They want to incentivize you, if not outright social-shame you should you choose not to/fail to comply, to use their service continually, and heavily. 

 

"Hey, XYZ acquaintance LIKED your post about $FOO!"

and

"We miss you! ABC Acquaintance is still here, waiting for you!"

 

etc.

 

Last I checked, my old landline phone did not try to "reward" me for using it.  It did not try to "Encourage" me to use it either. If I wanted to call grandma, all I had to do was pick it up, dial her number, and hope she was home (or inside, since you know-- people used to do that kind of thing.)

 

Old fashioned BBS systems really didn't intend for 'realtime' conversations over them either. You logged on, checked your messages (which were assumed to be read whenever you decided to log back in, which had no set schedule, and people understood that then), downloaded something, maybe uploaded something, maybe played  fun game for a while-- hung up, then went and did something else.  Again, maybe outside, with real friends, in person.

 

No, modern social media wants you to be constantly connected to their service, so you can be NOTIFIED IMMEDIATELY! when your friends do something. Gawd Forbid that you fail respond, because YOU MONSTER. 

 

I am a cynical pessimist, and see it as just a naked data vaccuum, designed to hoover up everything about your life, and the lives of everyone you know, while at the same time blasting you with advertisements, generated explicitly from the user-data they vaccuumed up from you. I look at that and get a sour stomach.  No thank you. Do not want. They use psychologically abusive tactics to trap you, similar to a goddamn cult's.  Double do not want.

 

 

That doesn't mean that social media is the ONLY thing on the internet though.  There are plenty of places still where the old-ways of use can be done, but admittedly, they are getting fewer and fewer.  New web technology people want to ram hundreds of megabytes of pure garbage down your connection for frivolous and foolish reasons, and don't give two fucks about your desires not not see that shit. (I am talking about shameless abuse of Flash, historically, and HTML5 Canvas animation, currently-- as well as horrific abuse of cross-site javascript, and javascript libraries to make all the things be super interactive, like I have freaking ADD.) Design a clean, simplistic and functional web page? "What is this, the 90s!?".  Fuck, I wish....  Turning off cross-site cookie and javascript loading breaks 9/10ths of the web, because the people running those sites cant be bothered to silo things properly. (Or worse still, actively PAID not to. You know, so that all those cross-site connections can be correlated, to identify you.)

 

I got online after the Eternal September, but I remember the dying gasps of the good internet. I am quite confident I would have used it correctly should things have remained as they were, and it had not been opened up to 24/7 mercantilism, and childish behavior.

 

This has turned into "Old man yells at cloud", (pun intended), but it DOES floor me how so many people are floored by how often I disconnect from the internet, and mass social media's hentai tentacles, to just unplug.  What's wrong with a good old fashioned FM radio, and a simple, manual hobby?  You know, like wood working, or flying RC planes, going hiking? People used to go hiking without their goddamn phones all the time-- thats what a map and a compass are for.  Maybe just go fishing? While it's true that I tend to old or abandoned tech like a morlock, that does not mean I dont value time in the sun, away from the machines.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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