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[–] 54 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (7 children)

I always thought more that it sounded musical somehow.

But then again, I am a huge fan of things like Progressive Industrial Death Metal, so maybe this doesn't amount for much...

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  • [–] 27 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    Please tell me I’m not the only 90’s kid that air guitars to the 52k dialup.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 months ago*

    When I was young, the whole "you might be a redneck if ... " thing was popular and commonly aped. One example I saw was "you might be a geek if ... "

    One of the qualifications was "you leave the modem speaker on after being connected because you think it sounds like the ocean, the perfect accompaniment for 'surfing the web.'"

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  • [–] 45 points 2 months ago

    Same, I also scream out in pain, inside, when I have to perform a handshake and negotiate communication protocols.

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  • [–] 32 points 2 months ago (4 children)

    People take it for granted but it's actually such a cool bit of engineering, we had a world-changing technology, but it would take decades to get lines set up and wouldn't really be too useful until then. But engineers realized by literally playing and listening to beeps over an existing widespread utility in phone lines, you've just given almost everyone access to the internet overnight, with almost 0 infrastructure cost.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    Today I found out dial-up literally used the phone lines.

    All the pieces were there, I just never thought about it.

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  • [–] 14 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    Found the gen Z kid lol.

    Anyone who actually used it was painfully aware of that fact. If anyone wanted to make a phone call, no more internet for you, and in some cases incoming phone calls could bounce you offline. Some people paid for a dedicated phone line for the internet but that was extremely rare for personal use.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago

    This pic is an acoustic coupler, which played sounds and listened to them from the handset. Modems would connect directly to the phone circuit, bypassing actual sound waves (although they did still have a little speaker so the you could hear what they received).

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  • [–] 21 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    20th century engineers: The worst thing I can possibly imagine is this cable getting disconnected. I would rather the entire thing get ripped apart or pulled off the shelf. Two screws, so it stays tight during combat.

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  • [–] 16 points 2 months ago

    Monitor connectors: "I'll destroy all your hardware before I give up connecting this stuff. You can put as much punishment as you need!"

    Disk drivers: "Help! The user sneezed! The disk is lost!"

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  • [–] 10 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (6 children)

    I wish there was a search engine that only searched text based websites or at least sites that don't have ads. 90s internet was amazing. Tons of websites ran by average people passionate about their interests, giving oral histories about things. Our computers were screaming, trying to tell us not to lose sight of what it was meant for.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    I think Kagi has a 'small web' feature.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 months ago* (1 child)

    Kagi looks like it's part of the problem. It exactly looks like that 2000s meme that showed a dystopian future where Comcast sells websites like cable channels.

    https://kagi.com/pricing

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago

    Wiby and searchmysite are basically this. I have them as backends for my SearXNG instance, in addition to mojeek, qwant, startpage, duckduckgo, and brave search. Put together, it's basically as good as Google was before it got enshittified to all fuck.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    Is there a reason we specifically used those sounds for the communication? Like, surely it didn't have to sound like feral cats fucking, right?

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  • [–] 5 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    While this is funny, isn't it ironic that's the same period where the internet was actually good?

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  • [–] 4 points 2 months ago

    Also, given how telephones like the one from the photo were the main way out of the simulation in The Matrix, the cry/screech was from someone outside The Matrix. Whoever was crying/screeching, was trying to warn about how computers, simulation within the simulation, would be further trapping us inside The Matrix. Now the telephones are gone, and so is our only line to whoever was trying to warn.!programmer_humor@programming.dev

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  • [–] 4 points 2 months ago (4 children)

    Someone should return those stolen pixels in that picture.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    This picture is from the olden days, when pixels were rare.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    Not the olden days I was there and I'm not old. Get off my modem.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago*

    Seriously, meeting someone that could recite the number the modern was calling was like finding a secret wizard warlock IRL. 🤯

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago

    now mine grumbles in consternation because it isnt. at least not long enough.for it to realize and try to update things heh

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