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The 2400 "baud" modem

Indeed. I just filled out and signed a state form. My choices were FAX or surface mail--the government will accept my signature only in either of those forms. I imagine that where legality is an issue that FAX still reigns supreme.
 
Chuck(G) said:
Indeed. I just filled out and signed a state form. My choices were FAX or surface mail--the government will accept my signature only in either of those forms. I imagine that where legality is an issue that FAX still reigns supreme.
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I think it is the illusion of a piece of paper being sent that is the appeal. Of course, there's no denying the practicality and directness of the method.

I got a fancy Xerox printer a while ago and it will do fax as well, but I never bothered to hook up the phone line to it. Perhaps I should consider it for future "official" stuff.



vwestlife said:
"Super G3" fax machines use V.34bis, which allows up to 33.6 kbps.
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I didn't realize they were that fast nowadays. However, with the copper being ripped out in most places, I doubt that many will be able to do that speed much longer. Perhaps I'm wrong. Even with a supposedly fax friendly codec VoIP probably won't do it, and many of the providers are now IP based underneath. T.30 doesn't seem to be ready yet. I note that 9600 is recommended these days. Anyway, it will be interesting to see how faxing pans out in the next few years.
 
Ole Juul said:
I think it is the illusion of a piece of paper being sent that is the appeal. Of course, there's no denying the practicality and directness of the method.

I got a fancy Xerox printer a while ago and it will do fax as well, but I never bothered to hook up the phone line to it. Perhaps I should consider it for future "official" stuff. I didn't realize they were that fast nowadays. However, with the copper being ripped out in most places, I doubt that many will be able to do that speed much longer. Perhaps I'm wrong. Even with a supposedly fax friendly codec VoIP probably won't do it, and many of the providers are now IP based underneath. T.30 doesn't seem to be ready yet. I note that 9600 is recommended these days. Anyway, it will be interesting to see how faxing pans out in the next few years.
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We use a networked multi-function printer/scanners at work which seem to send/receive international faxes just fine and dandy.
 
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Ole Juul said:
I think it is the illusion of a piece of paper being sent that is the appeal. Of course, there's no denying the practicality and directness of the method.

I got a fancy Xerox printer a while ago and it will do fax as well, but I never bothered to hook up the phone line to it. Perhaps I should consider it for future "official" stuff.
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Indeed. My wife and I just sold some out of state real estate. We were sent blank forms as PDFs, printed them, filled in (we still keep a Selectric typewriter around), took them to our accountants and signed and had them notarized. The forms were then FAXed from there, and then a stop was made at a Fedex office to send them overnight to the recipient. We were assured that this was all done to preserve the legality of the transaction. Talk about belt and braces.

I suspect that some of the issue was due to conducting the transaction over state lines, where laws differ in jurisdictions.

At any rate, Fedex is still making a fortune off the paper trade. Paperless office? Not likely anytime soon.
 
Caluser2000 said:
We use a networked multi-function printer/scanners at work which seem to send/receive international faxes just fine and dandy.
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That's what I use. Do you know what speed you're getting?

Mine is a XEROX WorkCentre 3220, and the manual says:
"Embedded fax (33.6 Kbps with MH/MR/MMR/JBIG/JPEG compression"

But in the fine print, it also says:
"*Analog phone line required ** Windows only "

I've got a POTS line, but the other requirement is a bit rich for me. ;)
 
Looks like you'll just have to use the manual method like old times. Punch in the numbers using the key pad. Should be able to save any regular numbers easily enough as well as email addresses. Sure beats scanning to pdf then opening up your email client then sending the pdfs to their desination.

No idea on the speed of the ones at work but the main thing is it just works. I'm a bit old fashion that way. I'm on leave till next Monday so will have a gander at the user manual when I get back.
 
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My first modem was a Radio Shack DCM-3 that I used with a TRS-80 Model III in 1989 (by all accounts obsolete even in that timeframe). By 1991 I had upgraded to a 2400 bps modem (I think it was an Everex... I bought it from Wal-Mart for about $100) and it seemed like lightning at the time. The one I had was an Everex model that I bought from Wal-Mart. I have fond memories of that timeframe. I used it to connect with local BBSes (including the one I ran remotely), GEnie, CompuServe, and later America Online.
 
Chuck(G) said:
Indeed. My wife and I just sold some out of state real estate. We were sent blank forms as PDFs, printed them, filled in (we still keep a Selectric typewriter around), took them to our accountants and signed and had them notarized. The forms were then FAXed from there, and then a stop was made at a Fedex office to send them overnight to the recipient. We were assured that this was all done to preserve the legality of the transaction. Talk about belt and braces.

I suspect that some of the issue was due to conducting the transaction over state lines, where laws differ in jurisdictions.

At any rate, Fedex is still making a fortune off the paper trade. Paperless office? Not likely anytime soon.
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At our home closing a couple of years ago, I was able to handle all of the paperwork leading up to the actual closing (securing the loan, making the offer, accepting the counter, etc) electronically via email and secure document servers online. The actual signing was of course still at the closing attorney's office....which then scanned all the paperwork in and gave us a CD of the papers along with photocopies. One of these days...
 
Speaking of the Fax machine... one thing that I find somewhat humorous about the use of fax machines over electronic email or otherwise is that the fax machine (or at least the process) predates the telephone by a number of years. :)
 
geoffm3 said:
At our home closing a couple of years ago, I was able to handle all of the paperwork leading up to the actual closing (securing the loan, making the offer, accepting the counter, etc) electronically via email and secure document servers online. The actual signing was of course still at the closing attorney's office....which then scanned all the paperwork in and gave us a CD of the papers along with photocopies. One of these days...
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Hmm, that brings up a question. How long before nobody has a CD-ROM reader?
 
I hope that you will forgive me for being picky but your post should be a 2400 bps or b/s (bits per second) modem. Baud means the rate of transition of the line and is only synonymous with the bit rate of early modems and certainly was not the case by the time they had got to 2400 bps.

This may seem pedantic but the www (not the Internet) is often quoted as holy writ and so we may as well get it right.
 
geoffm3 said:
Speaking of the Fax machine... one thing that I find somewhat humorous about the use of fax machines over electronic email or otherwise is that the fax machine (or at least the process) predates the telephone by a number of years. :)
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Or that faxes were being sent wirelessly (via shortwave radio) many decades before smartphones were invented.

There are actually still some "weather fax" stations on shortwave, as well as RTTY stations, mostly transmitting marine forecasts:


Beerhunter said:
I hope that you will forgive me for being picky but your post should be a 2400 bps or b/s (bits per second) modem. Baud means the rate of transition of the line and is only synonymous with the bit rate of early modems and certainly was not the case by the time they had got to 2400 bps.

This may seem pedantic but the www (not the Internet) is often quoted as holy writ and so we may as well get it right.
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That's why "baud" is in quotation marks. :) Just like incorrectly using the "DB" prefix for port sizes other than 25-pin, the usage of "baud" stuck around even though it was no longer correct with higher data rates -- probably just because it's easier to say than "bits per second" or "BPS".
 
vwestlife said:
There are actually still some "weather fax" stations on shortwave, as well as RTTY stations, mostly transmitting marine forecasts:
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Very nice. It's amazing how much unfashionable tech is used these days.

That's why "baud" is in quotation marks. :) Just like incorrectly using the "DB" prefix for port sizes other than 25-pin, the usage of "baud" stuck around even though it was no longer correct with higher data rates -- probably just because it's easier to say than "bits per second" or "BPS".
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Thanks. :) I did notice that the old editions of PCMag used bps almost exclusively, but that the ads often didn't say anything other than the number.

I've got a thread going over at VoIP Techchat that relates to this one, and somebody (quite rightly) brought up the baud/bps issue there too. I list all the modem protocols at the end of the second page, so I'll just link here if anybody is interested.
 
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I've been continuing my search about 2400 modem era and found a great article in PC Mag from 23 Jul 1985: "A New Standard 2400 bps" by David Stone.

For most of us, there is little reason to rush out and buy a new modem until 2400-bps standard becomes more widespread.
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Hideously expensive the first year, but the price soon went down.

In 1982, shortly after the V.22bis protocol was approved as a CCIT recommendation, Concord Data Systems (CDS) and Racal-Vadic became the first companies to offer V.22bis modems. Both modems cost about $1,700, or twice as much as the Hayes smartmodem 1200. These new modems, with their hefty price tags, sold almost exclusively to the mainframe market. Over the next year or so, several other modem manufacturers, including Rixon, Micom, and Codex, announced their own V.22 bis modems. This move seemed to legitimize the new protocol and the market finally took off.

At the fall COMDEX, at least a half-dozen models of 2400-bps modems were announced for the PC market. The current list of players includes Hayes, Novation, U.S. Robotics, Microcom, and Racal-Vadic. Most of the modems were originally announced with a list price of just under $900. But by 1985, the competition was already heating up, and U.S. Robotics $699. Still lower prices are sure to come.
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I've made some more notes on the era and probably should organize them for public consumption. Maybe I'll just put up a web page as part of my "2400" project. I'll be sure to post that here.
 
We had a 300 baud data coupler. Then got a 1200 baud Apple modem for the Apple II. Had that for ever until 14.4 modems came out, and we decided to splurge on a nice, fast modem. We attempted to buy one from Fry's Electronics, but when we got home it was apparent it was a 2400 baud modem someone had swapped in the box. Tried to return it, but Fry's wouldn't take it back. So we ended up with a very, very expensive 2400 baud modem which we kept until 14.4s were cheap, then upgraded to that.

We had a 56k modem well into the 2000s because, despite living in "Silicon Valley," we couldn't get Cable or DSL. We had affordable 144k IDSL line for about a year before the company was bought up by Covad, then Covad said that we magically didn't qualify for IDSL because we were too far... despite actively using and having it when they called to cancel/renew our service with Covad. :rolleyes: Thus, it was back to dialup until I actually physically moved out of San Jose.

I didn't get DSL until around 2006 or so when I moved to Grass Valley. A little town in the mountains north of Sacramento. Which had DSL. But not San Jose.
 
Interesting that no one mentions the old Bell equipment. Used to be that if you hooked to the phone line, you either leased a DAA or used a Bell-installed modem. Then Carterfone came along...

But well into the 80s, we were still using 208 and 209 modems. In spite of the deployed numbers, Bell modems are quite uncommon to find today.
 
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vwestlife said:
Or that faxes were being sent wirelessly (via shortwave radio) many decades before smartphones were invented.

There are actually still some "weather fax" stations on shortwave, as well as RTTY stations, mostly transmitting marine forecasts:

.
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.
I wrote some code once to use a softmodem ( one with down loaded DSP code )
to use as a front end for weather fax. I used some code on the PC side I'd
found. I had a moving narrow filter that would track the drift of my receiver
better. I regret that is was lost to a disk crash. I had the radio output connected
to the input phone line.
Dwight
 
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