Snowflake's Feed

MODEM = MODulator DEModulator

Acoustic couplers are amazing devices. When you turn them upside down...they still work!

Thx for the history lesson professor. How long did it take you to download low resolution naughty pictures back in your day?

Always a student, never a professor. Those who can, do. Those who cannot, teach.

Anyway, assuming you are asking a serious question and not up to your usual insults and arguments, I will explain a little bit of history to you.

My first modem was 1200baud card (EISA?) that I slid into my 286 Commodore PC. Yes that's right. Back in my day I loved Commodore. Back then downloading messages from BBS's was sweet, but slow. I quickly upgraded to a 2400 baud modem that I loved.

Naughty photos with 256 colors and 640x480 resolution were around 1MB in size and took 30 minutes or so to download. They were worth the wait. Seeing swimsuit girls on a grainy beach were amazing. Sometimes you had to stand back about 30 feet to make out the pictures they were so blurry.

Oh dear look at the time.

I think I downloaded all of these images at one time or another.

Good old Spuds McKenzie!

MyOwnWorstEnemy liked this post

spuds! he was big in the 80s, he must have a video game out there somewhere

datagod liked this post

The BBS scene was huge in the early 80s - nearly everyone I knew with a home computer had a modem. I started with a 300 baud modem with the Coleco Adam, and had that for decades until I finally upgrade to a WiFi modem like Jim Drew's WiModem232 - instead of dialing up over the phone, the computer uses telnet to access BBSes. There are a few dial-up BBSes if you're interested in having the full experience of listening to modem whistles and handshakes. And before graphic files, you'd find images done up in ASCII that you'd print up on dot matrix as a banner, post on a wall and then stand back 10 feet to see what the #### and ***** (among other characters) created.

I wonder if the original Twin Galaxies International Scoreboard lists were ever posted on BBSes as text files? That would be an interesting historical possibility to verify.

http://www.videoparadise-sanjose.com/tg-top5.htm

Snowflake, datagod liked this post

but i think this was what you actually downloaded

datagod liked this post

Originally Posted by The Evener

The BBS scene was huge in the early 80s - nearly everyone I knew with a home computer had a modem. I started with a 300 baud modem with the Coleco Adam, and had that for decades until I finally upgrade to a WiFi modem like Jim Drew's WiModem232 - instead of dialing up over the phone, the computer uses telnet to access BBSes. There are a few dial-up BBSes if you're interested in having the full experience of listening to modem whistles and handshakes. And before graphic files, you'd find images done up in ASCII that you'd print up on dot matrix as a banner, post on a wall and then stand back 10 feet to see what the #### and ***** (among other characters) created.

I wonder if the original Twin Galaxies International Scoreboard lists were ever posted on BBSes as text files? That would be an interesting historical possibility to verify.

http://www.videoparadise-sanjose.com/tg-top5.htm

neat. my start with the internet was 14.4, just about a year or so before AOL took over and changed everything. i just stumbled across this cause i like reading the old magazines, and it was cool cause i'm somewhat new to the atari 400 and its accesories are awesome.

Completely agree about the fun of reading through old magazines. It's funny how much info I originally skimmed through in those issues, I forgot that I didn't read them cover to cover.


The Atari 400 is also my favourite Atari computer, followed by the 800XL. I grabbed a 400 in the 90s but ended up selling my 800XL when I realized I had no space to set it up and wouldn't be tracking down upgrades and peripherals.

datagod liked this post

l like the shape of the 400 reminds me of the nes, i know i know, the 400 came out first, but for me the nes was first. also, even if the nes never existed, its just a cool idea to cover the cartridge. i cant logically defend it, i guess theres subjectivity to art, but artistically i really like its shell

i did pick up an untested tape drive for, i forgot how much, but i think like $5. i know it was cheap, it has to be if its untested. and as much as i know "untested" normally mean "tested and 100% broke but we're gonna lie to you" in this case i can believe it really was untested. also for $5 its just plain a cool decoration

After I outgrew my TRS-80 Coco, I bought an Atari 65XE. This was 1985 I think. I loved the sound chips and the slightly better graphics than the C64.

My friends had C64 and access to all the pirated software. I was the only one I knew with an Atari, so sadly I had to rely on my rationed lunch money to buy games. Back then they had "flippy disks". One side was for C64, the other side was for Atari. Temple of Apsai was one of them. It was far better on the Atari.

Man, I wish I knew what happened to that old system. I had an impact printer that was FAR SUPERIOR to any dot matrix printer, as least for pure text. 12 words per minute sure is slow, but I got extra points in English class for my super net "tying" ability. Teacher was impressed that I could right justify text. Other students would lose marks for vic-20 printer paper, looked very unprofessional (according to the dumb teacher who didn't realize I was using a printer and a word processor)

Yeah, word processor on a cartridge was so cool too!

The Evener liked this post

The freedom of C64 owners to "share" games thanks to their large installed base also made me envious. I didn't know a single person that owned a Coleco Adam, so sharing was a distant dream. Atari 8-bit owners were overshadowed by the C64 community, but changed to a large degree when the Atari ST came out - it was a fairly even split between the Amiga and the ST in my circle.

c64 i heard about a bit in snes days when i was playing nes (thats right even snes days i was going retro). i love archon. i learned from from people with the c64 archon came on there before nes, and even better, c64 has an archon 2

much like the first game i got for coleco had to be smurfs, if i ever get a c64 archon 2 will be my first game for it