Communications... Past, Present and Future

[Tricky]

So we don't de-rail the thread in Save game "ghost" file anomaly

From https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?f= ... 06#p179603

Off topic Getafix, but your signature has caught my attention on more than one occassion (twice, to be exact). I have a bit more to learn in my own study of physics before I'll be getting my head completely around this paper, but at least I can say that it isn't all 'Greek' at this point in time (I'm in my junior year of a Physics BS - of both that and a Music composition/theory BA ). This fact sure makes people's job at SETI that much more difficult ; and goes to show that we may have gotten an intelligent signal and not even been aware of it .

Really off-topic... Interesting paper, reminds me of this I downloaded 5 or 6 years ago... On Distributed Communications, by The RAND Corporation - Santa Monica, California, USA
Really old paper. No, I mean REALLY OLD. About mid 1960's.

EDIT: You might recognize this as the pre-cursor to the Internet.

From https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?f= ... 06#p179606

EDIT: You might recognize this as the pre-cursor to the Internet.

No doubt - thanks for the share Tricky. I think Vanevar Bush's ideas were the first step towards a world-wide knowledge repository and this paper definitely takes it a few steps further than what he was considering.

I thought I recognized that name...  Majestic 12. I actually saw these so called documents back in 1994 before they were put on the web, along with the "official" report on the  Roswell incident.

[CommRLock78]

So we don't de-rail the thread in Save game "ghost" file anomaly

Definitely a good idea to keep that thread from getting off course, I just couldn't help but mention Getafix's signature, as it brought me to the original paper .

I thought I recognized that name...  Majestic 12. I actually saw these so called documents back in 1994 before they were put on the web, along with the "official" report on the  Roswell incident.

Wow, you saw the physical documents? The whole incident must be either a tremendous hoax, or some sort of military apparatus that the government didn't want people to know about. More interesting to me are Bush's ideas of making a database of all human knowledge (on microfilm, no less ).

[Tricky]

I thought I recognized that name...  Majestic 12. I actually saw these so called documents back in 1994 before they were put on the web, along with the "official" report on the  Roswell incident.

Wow, you saw the physical documents? The whole incident must be either a tremendous hoax, or some sort of military apparatus that the government didn't want people to know about.

Well, either they were original copies or someone in a print shop, with too much time on their hands, mocked them up. (The source was RAF based)

More interesting to me are Bush's ideas of making a database of all human knowledge (on microfilm, no less ).

Reminds me of this story... BT Hyperlink Patent. There are also some claims that BT had a hand in helping to create the blueprint for the internet. Probably stemming from this...

The British Post Office, Western Union International and Tymnet collaborated to create the first international packet switched network, referred to as the International Packet Switched Service (IPSS), in 1978. This network grew from Europe and the US to cover Canada, Hong Kong and Australia by 1981. By the 1990s it provided a worldwide networking infrastructure.

-- Source  [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of ... a_networks]History of the Internet - X.25 and public data networks[/url]

[CommRLock78]

Well, either they were original copies or someone in a print shop, with too much time on their hands, mocked them up. (The source was RAF based)

Heh, the version I saw was from the internet, it had more black in crossed-out lines than it had black in actual text .

Reminds me of this story... BT Hyperlink Patent. There are also some claims that BT had a hand in helping to create the blueprint for the internet. Probably stemming from this...

The British Post Office, Western Union International and Tymnet collaborated to create the first international packet switched network, referred to as the International Packet Switched Service (IPSS), in 1978. This network grew from Europe and the US to cover Canada, Hong Kong and Australia by 1981. By the 1990s it provided a worldwide networking infrastructure.

-- Source  [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of ... a_networks]History of the Internet - X.25 and public data networks[/url]

That's quite interesting. Internet history is fascinating, and the technology has allowed a bunch of whackos like us Ooliters to communicate our interest from around the world in a bulletin board like this. By the way, the first link in the quote above has a dead link : "(BT sues Prodigy)" , talk about a blast from the past - AOL, Prodigy, Compuserve, etc... LMAO.... dial up.... <dial tone, dialing, noise = slow connection> too funny to think back on....

[NigelJK]

I remember the company I worked for at the time (back in the 80's and a huge US concern) went to BT to ask what the latest design modem could be pushed to (we had a communication concentrator which provided 'email' and 'report download' to 300+ 'sales force'). This revolved around a 1200 baud modem, but was taking ages ....

BT replied by sending us a coffee table sized modem which could do 2400 baud, with the statement that we could never go quicker than this as twisted pair cable wouldn't handle it. So we bought 300+ of them. They were decommissioned a year later and replaced with 9600 baud modems from US robotics ...

[CommRLock78]

I remember the company I worked for at the time (back in the 80's and a huge US concern) went to BT to ask what the latest design modem could be pushed to (we had a communication concentrator which provided 'email' and 'report download' to 300+ 'sales force'). This revolved around a 1200 baud modem, but was taking ages ....

BT replied by sending us a coffee table sized modem which could do 2400 baud, with the statement that we could never go quicker than this as twisted pair cable wouldn't handle it. So we bought 300+ of them. They were decommissioned a year later and replaced with 9600 baud modems from US robotics ...

Whopping moves from 1200 to 9600 - did anyone get in trouble for buying so many 2400 baud modems ?

We never had the modem for it, but my first computer growing up was a TI-99/4a, and its modem was 300 baud; however CorComp's RS-232 card for it was capable of 9600 baud max. I still have one of these machines and the huge expansion box that goes with it, and was able to get some very basic communication between it and my newest computer a few months ago via a RS-232 to USB cable. It was quite fun to see a 30+ year old computer talk to a brand new machine....

[Getafix]

This does bring some memories! 2400bps...
...distinguishing when the modem had a successful MNP5 handshake (talking about meaningful noise)...
hmmm... downloading Amiga demos, taking almost an hour per disk!

[JensAyton]

Am I misreading the picture, or is the plug for that ribbon cable bigger than a 3.5" hard disk?

[Gimbal Locke]

I looked into buying a TI99 in 1981, I didn't because it could only be programmed in extremely slow* interpreted BASIC at the time: assembler programming was at first strictly reserved for corporations. I understand that later on assembly language was opened to the public.

The expansion box could be avoided** by just plugging in devices in serial, the order of the devices was important.

Am I misreading the picture, or is the plug for that ribbon cable bigger than a 3.5" hard disk?

Here's a close-up picture of the ribbon cable you're asking about, the plug*** on the other side is even bigger (Source with more pictures):




* TI99 was a 16-bit computer, but the BASIC interpreter was outperformed by many 8-bitters.
** OK, I'm kidding, it was ofc the other way around.
*** Some stretching of semantics going on here

[CommRLock78]

Am I misreading the picture, or is the plug for that ribbon cable bigger than a 3.5" hard disk?

Not at all Ahruman, the whole thing is monstrous; the expansion itself is easily 25lbs .
But, it will tell you, the thing is a near-indestructible workhorse. I had it in an indoor storage unit (no heating/cooling, but closed off from the outdoors) for about two years (in SW US heat/cold) and it started with no problems after taking it out - everything still worked like it did when I last had it set up in about 2004 - indeed just as it did the day it was made.

[CommRLock78]

I looked into buying a TI99 in 1981, I didn't because it could only be programmed in extremely slow* interpreted BASIC at the time: assembler programming was at first strictly reserved for corporations. I understand that later on assembly language was opened to the public.

The expansion box could be avoided** by just plugging in devices in serial, the order of the devices was important.


Here's a close-up picture of the ribbon cable you're asking about, the plug*** on the other side is even bigger


* TI99 was a 16-bit computer, but the BASIC interpreter was outperformed by many 8-bitters.
** OK, I'm kidding, it was ofc the other way around.
*** Some stretching of semantics going on here

The built in basic was not only interpreted, but doubly interpreted; however, this was fixed with the TI "Extended" Basic, which turned out to be quite nice. They did (I'm not sure of the year) release information to write in Assembly, which I've learned a bit of, and I must say, it was superior to any other language on the machine, as the compiled programs ran very fast for the time .

Edit: Great picture of the daisy chain Gimbal Locke. That picture always did crack me up, and I always wondered what the heck they were thinking .

[NigelJK]

Ah yes MNP5

The 'communications concentrator' I alluded to earlier was an IBM RT6150 running AIX. It had 2 extrenal 'Winchesters' (HDD these days). These weigh in at 50kg's a piece, and hold the (then) hugh storage capaicty of 20mb each.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_6150_RT

Ours was a little special in that it had a 12x serial port with a built in MUX (built for us by IBM) for connecting up all 12x modems, and a purpose built SNA board for connecting to an AS400.

I now have the machine in my study, although only get the opportunity to boot it up about once a year just to ensure it's all still 'goes'. Those Winchesters make the whole room shake when they get going ...

[CommRLock78]

I now have the machine in my study, although only get the opportunity to boot it up about once a year just to ensure it's all still 'goes'. Those Winchesters make the whole room shake when they get going ...

It's great having an old machine accessible to use, even if you don't use it very often. Something I don't have but would like to get is a hard disk drive for the TI-99/4a - there were a few third-party IDE controllers made for it, but they are hard to come by.

[NigelJK]

When Acorn released the Risc PC it did the shows with the most essential expansion ever concieved:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/andysretro ... 919251490/

[CommRLock78]

When Acorn released the Risc PC it did the shows with the most essential expansion ever concieved:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/andysretro ... 919251490/

That expansion is the certainly the largest I've ever seen. Being a newer computer than the TI, I'm sure it's not nearly as heavy as the the TI expansion box, but it does look bigger. I love the nickname, too - "pizza oven"