1200 bits per second on an IBM PC

Silicon Alley Insider put up an interesting post today titled AOL To Launch New Ad Campaign – Here Are The Best Old Ones. The post links ten old AOL ads dating back to 1996. It’s pretty interesting to watch them (my favorite is number 6! :)

This got me thinking about how far we’ve come regarding bandwidth and (for many of us fortunate to have broadband service available) the old days of dial-up. Poking around for a couple of minutes on YouTube I found this video of an old IBM PC running DOS 2.0 connecting to a Bulletin Board Service (BBS) with a Hayes Smartmodem 1200. I had the exact same system minus the color monitor around 1982 or so.

Memories of DOS, dial-up sounds and the old AT command set...... I paid around $700 just for that modem and have still got it sitting on my desk as a curiosity piece. Just can't bring myself to tossing what still looks like $700 (in 1982 money) to me!

Thanks to vintageibmnet for posting the video.