[Coco] Remember the Hayes?

[Dennis Bathory-Kitsz]

At 11:20 PM 12/2/03 -0500, Aaron Banerjee wrote:
>  I still have a Modem IB (Radio Shack) that works.  I can't find anyone
>(besides myself) who takes 300 baud anymore.  It's a direct connect modem;
>that is, you still have to dial the telephone and flip the switch to
>"orig" to call, or if someone calls you, you have to flip to "answer".  I
>was wondering, does anyone still have a working acoustic modem?

Yup. A Radio Shack modem that was the first issued for the Model I. I'm not
sure the model number; it's in storage, but if I remember, I'll look
tomorrow. I also have the serial card that fit into the expansion box. You
could whistle to trigger it if the remote signal was low, and then it would
kick in.

I have a story (I always have stories). Back when I lived about 10 miles
south in little Roxbury, Vermont (pop. then was 330, now close to 700), I
wanted to make the modem work, but was having trouble. We had party lines
then, of course, and had only to dial 4 numbers to get someone in our
exchange. Remember this was not the dark ages -- only 1978! 

I called the phone company (a private group that served three towns, since
gobbled up by TDS Telecom), and they were perplexed. A modem? In Roxbury?
They sent a grumpy guy along who was trying to measure something, but his
meter wasn't working. He finally turned around & asked if I had a 9-volt
battery. I did, he found the signal low (it was 7 miles from there to the
office, with no amplifiers), and paralleled two sets of wires so I could
have a high enough signal for the modem to work.

That's how I submitted those early articles -- 300 baud, proofreading the
text as it swept across the screen. :)

Dennis