Modems

[Harrison]

Is the a broadband or dialup connection?

Pretty cool if it is broadband. If that was me I would have it sucking as much down the connection as I could each day until they ever found out. Then you could claim you no knowledge of it because as far as you are aware you haven't been paying for any internet connection for a year.

[Stephen Coates]

Well, as quickly as a 56K modem can do things, which when compared to current connects is very slow. A theoretical Maximum 7KB/s (56Kbps) on a 56K modem compared to a theoretical Maximum of 1MB/s (8,192Kbps) via an 8Mbit Broadband Max connection, or an even higher 3MB/s (24,576Kbps) via ADSL2. These figures just show how out of date and dead dialup 56K modem connections now really are.

Have you tried connecting your Amiga's via ethernet to broadband yet Steve? Would make a big difference.

That isn;t possible because I don;t have an ethernet controller, which is the exact reason I wanted a 56k modem.

Do bear in mind that this is the A500+.

And somehow, I can't see ADSL being much different with IRC on such a computer. Or Web sites for that matter. As the speed is really limited by the speed of the serial port and of the computer itself. e.g. IRC via the v34 modem on the A1200 seemed faster than IRC on the A500+ via the v90 modem due to the A1200's Blizard.

I can chat on IRC on a modern PC over a 56k modem and the only noticabe difference in speed between that and ADSL is when it connects and displays the MOTD, which takes a couple of seconds longer.

When I said about typing the text in, I could press a key and it would take about a second to appear on the screen. The time delay between me pressing return and the text being sent to the server and appearing in the channel window was not much different to that of the PC for one reason - it is a small bit of text.

[Submeg]

No, only dial up, so cant really download anything...lol I wish it was broadband

[Harrison]

That isn;t possible because I don;t have an ethernet controller, which is the exact reason I wanted a 56k modem.

Do bear in mind that this is the A500+.

And somehow, I can't see ADSL being much different with IRC on such a computer. Or Web sites for that matter. As the speed is really limited by the speed of the serial port and of the computer itself. e.g. IRC via the v34 modem on the A1200 seemed faster than IRC on the A500+ via the v90 modem due to the A1200's Blizard.

ISPs must love you Steve. Their favourite customers are those that pay for an internet connection and then never push the connection at all. Means they have minimum overheads serving you your connection.

As we have all stated at various points in the past, none of the rest of us could manage via a dial-up connection at all any more. The range of activities available online these days and the speed difference even loading a single webpage is so big that we couldn't stomach it.

I also disagree with you regarding dial-up being OK for looking at websites. This may have been tolerable when websites were all static html based pages, but now nearly every website is serving pages dynamically and using Web 2 based technology to make the users experience unique and interactive. Using such technology via dial-up would not be easy, and I can imagine in a lot of cases a modem would be too slow to cope and the connection would time out between the server and browser trying to run many site pages these days.

Although I expect you only mainly view pages created in the 90's. After all, why would you need modern websites. Surely those created a the dawn of the internet are good enough for you!

[Stephen Coates]

You obviously don;t get that I wouldn;t want to view such pages on the A500+ anyway.

Also, I do have and use ADSL. And I use it alot (well, used to, until recently when I finally decided that the internet is too boring to continue to use regulaly). I just can't use that on the A500+ because a) it is three miles away from the ADSL connection and b) I do not know anything about ethernet connections.

Anyway, getting a modern internet connection working on an old computer is supposed to be fun. (Yes, modern - as far as I'm aware we din't have 56k modems in 1991)

[Harrison]

Sometimes I forget that you are not old enough to have been around when modems were the fastest and most wanted device for bbs and early internet connections. For this reason I can see your facination with wanting to get such old hardware working with the Amiga.

But for the rest of us certain standards and hardware isn't nostalgic for us or something we would want to revert to, and the biggest of such hardware has to be the dial-up modem. I hated them back when I had to use one, and I hate them just as much now. Slow, unreliable (dropping the line when mid game or download), sometimes annoying to configure etc... In contrast, these days broadband is fast, you can share a connection between multiple machines, no connecting each time, or dropped lines. A complete contrast.

BTW, 56K modems first appeared in 1996. In 1991 the v32 modem was standard with a speed of 19.2K. So yes it was even slower, but in 1991 the internet we know today didn't exist. There were no webpages or search engines. You had to log into BBS servers or directly to FTP servers. You has to know the exact details to log into these too, not like the internet today where you can browse around from site to site. In those days 19.2K was fast enough to browse the text based interfaces of BBS systems. Today a modem is too slow and is out of date to be of any practical use.

well, used to, until recently when I finally decided that the internet is too boring to continue to use regulaly

How come the sudden change of interest in the internet? Annoyed too many forums? What do you do all day Steve if you don't use the internet? Saying the internet is boring is quite a strange comment when you consider the internet contains information about anything and everything in the world. Only a boring user with no interests could possible find it boring as they wouldn't be able to think of anything to look at.

[Submeg]

trust me, dial up IS NOT ok! I think all ppl with dialup should automatically be placed on broadband! I should start a petition!

[Harrison]

Have you finally got broadband yet Submeg? or are you hoping to be one of the lucky recipients of said free upgrade!

[Submeg]

No waiting for my dad to get off his arse...so frustrating! Gah! I wish I could get a free upgrade but still its cool, we have free net, so Im not complaining...just wish it was faster

[Stephen Coates]

You are right, for alot of things these days, ADSL is better. I like my ADSL because it is easier to use it on a network, and I can download big files quickly. Smaller files, even web pages, I can wait for on dialup though. Maybe I just have more patience than you.

But in the above posts, I was refering to IRC, which only needs a modem to be effective. Yes, you can stay on IRC all day with ADSL, but it WORKS just as good with a modem.

You said that a 19.2K modem was fast enough to use a text based BBS. Would it still be fast enough if you were using the exact same BBS as you were back then? It certainly wouldn't be any slower.