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Showing posts with label Antique 1964. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Antique 1964. Show all posts

Tuesday, 23 February 2010

Antique 1964 Livermore 'Model A' modem still works, crawls at a hot 300 baud

Antique 1964 Livermore \'Model A\' modem still works, crawls at a hot 300 baud

Seeing this modem from 1964 inspires a weird sense of envy, even if it is as slow as molasses. My wireless router looks cool and all, but it didn't come in a hand-carved box with dovetail joints, brass buckles, leather handles and a piano hinge. That's one sweet box, made even sweeter by the fact that it houses a Livermore Data Systems "Model A" acoustic modem, which reaches a blistering(ly slow) 300 baud. To the modern eye, it looks like something that belongs in a steampunk workshop.

It was given to Casey, also known on Youtube as Phreakmonkey, as a gift in 1989 by the widow of a retired IBM engineer. With a bit of work, he managed to get it running once more with what looks like an old ThinkPad, a telephone from the '80s, and of course the "Model A." Where's he go first? Wikipedia, naturally. Check it out in a video after the jump.