Connected at 46666? Would have been way more realistic to try again 3 times and settle for 24k instead. Let us type in init settings in desperation
this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2026
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retroNET - Vintage Culture/Websites/Software
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Websites, software, games, fads, memes, or any general happenings that used to occur or had originated on computers 20+ years ago.
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MUH CHILDHOOD
I spent WAY too much time playing the minesweeper lol
Yes, certainly these emotions I'm now feeling are articulate, proportionate, and completely manageable...
God, I want a Zima for some reason.
Best I can do is a Josta.
The modem is simulating a relatively late protocol. I started at 1200 baud with BBSes in 1987. I have used 300 baud, which takes a while to give you a screen of text. I used to be able to give you the general actual connection speed - because it depended on the quality of the line as to what you actually got. heh.
A pretty nice site. Not 100% accurate, but not bad. Feels more like around 1994 than 1996 to me.
Also a bummer that they didn't actually make the windows moveable, but that's a quibble and a lot of work. I also tried to see if I could get commandline, but i"m very unsurprised they didn't - that would hve been a lot more work :)
Am I misunderstanding? Start->programs->command prompt
I started with Win 3.1 technically, but had an older PC that was more like a word processsor (Type II something or other), and got to dismantal old hard drives the size of shoe boxes, and hung out in a basement with a guy who ran a dial up BBS with one of those 'set the rotary handset on the modem' modems... LOL
I also had free internet till 2000 cause I knew somebody who knew somebody who worked at a local non-profit internet service provider.
Life used to be so interesting.
It's still interesting, just different. heh.
I've thought about if I were able to go back in time and re-live from my childhood - making different choices because I assume i'd tke my present knowledge back with me… heh. So I've thought about having to live life limited by the tech of the time… and while I'd trade many things to go back in time and live my life differently, one aspect I would NOT cherish is the lower speeds and limitations of technology. lol. There's a lot to complain about these days, but the games and streaming media and such are nice, at least. :)
Some of the windows are moveable.
Only rich people had 56k in 96
Or people with priorities.
my parents bought me a 56K modem in 97 for christmas. it was my ONLY christmas present that year.
But man did I feel like hot shit after installing it. I'd go on mIRC and tell everyone I'd host the games of XvT, Jedi Knight: DF2, Mechwarrior 2, etc.
Damn man. You were cool. What happened that now you’re one of us here on Lemmy?
This doesn't feel right, we had our first ADSL line in the uk in 1998 and we were in a student flat share!
DSL requires a short distance to the phone switch, and splitting one faster line would be cheaper than four phone lines.
DSL didn’t really come to a lot of the US because things are so spread out here.
Eh. DSL actually negotiates across a bunch of different encodings, and g.dmt dropped max speeds in favor of reliability and it could be shot for miles. They were only getting 1.5 or 768, but it was still better than dialup. A random google search suggests 89% of the US population was within DSL range on legacy copper lines. If it wasn’t available you were way out there, or you were experiencing the lovely duopoly we have: the cable company beat the telecom to high speed in the area, so the telecom said fuck it for 5 years.
VDSL is when the extremely short distances started. By that time fiber was cheap enough for random backhaul runs but not ftth, so the battery(voltage) for the phone line still came from the CO miles away but the VDSL cabinet was practically in your backyard and data collected onto fiber from there.
iirc the first usr x2 and k56flex modems weren't out til 1997
Then you discovered that the other side was still running on a 28k modem, and you never really got 56k...
That cometlink website somehow feels too well-done for 1996
the 'computer' booted up way too fast, too.
Not enough hard drive clicking noise either.
I think it's trying to be like an AOL/CompuServe type instead of a standard ISP, which back then would not have had nearly that much information.
I think it's sort of like.... a passing generalization, like how accurate a ren faire is or a theme park. heh
It wasn't really quite like that, but this is close enough to give folks not around then a general taste of it. :)
I am only slightly disappointed that there isn't any RIPscript.