Who still uses dial-up modems these days?

[Ant]

Just curious. I haven't used it since the summer of 2014 before I was
evicted to move. :( I didn't bother to get copper landline in the new
nest location.
--
TGIGF! :)
Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly.
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://aqfl.net & http://antfarm.home.dhs.org /
/ /\ /\ \ http://antfarm.ma.cx. Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail.
| |o o| |
\ _ /
( )

[vjp...@at.biostrategist.dot.dot.com]

It's all I got.

I was converted to Fiber two years ago but I got only local calling and they
brought it into my old copper line. So inside the hosue, it's still the same.


- = -
Vasos Panagiotopoulos, Columbia'81+, Reagan, Mozart, Pindus
blog: panix.com/~vjp2/ruminatn.htm - = - web: panix.com/~vjp2/vasos.htm
facebook.com/vasjpan2 - linkedin.com/in/vasjpan02 - biostrategist.com
---{Nothing herein constitutes advice. Everything fully disclaimed.}---

[Moe Trin]

On Sat, 20 Apr 2019, in the Usenet newsgroup comp.dcom.modems, in article
<Z4KdneP2ebiDJCfB...@earthlink.com>, Ant wrote:

>Just curious. I haven't used it since the summer of 2014

cron-jobs - dials in every 4 hours, uses netcat or nmap

[sofia ~]$ whatis netcat nmap
netcat (1) - TCP/IP swiss army knife
nmap (1) - Network exploration tool and security / port scanner
[sofia ~]$

to test a number of port on the broadband router, then bails. As
we're retired. we can no longer do so from work, and most public
hot-spots would freak out if I tried it using their bandwidth.
Many consumer grade routers/cable-modems have back-doors, some
of which can't be disabled. I merely have those ports forwarded to a
server that runs a reject-daemon.

>I didn't bother to get copper landline in the new nest location.

Depends on what you're used to - we have dumb cell phones and
sometimes even turn them on. They're basically for outbound
calls ONLY. Actually, the last two facilities I worked in
prohibited any form of personal/portable phone for security.

Old guy

[vjp...@at.biostrategist.dot.dot.com]

My ISP uses windsteam popsite

[Mike Spencer]

Just dropping in. Modem is working fine.

a...@zimage.comANT (Ant) writes:

> Just curious. I haven't used it since the summer of 2014 before I was
> evicted to move. :( I didn't bother to get copper landline in the new
> nest location.

Still doing dialup here with USR external modems. Experimenting with
a Oxygen-3 "wireless gateway device" + SIM card on a data-only
account. It may soon replace much or all of the dialup. May have to
buy a new router before it all works as intended.

Hey, Old Guy (Moe Trin), thanks again for getting me on-line a few
years ago via dialup when the USB-to-serial adapter on my new laptop
failed correctly to handle the bits sent by the connection script that
works on a real serial port. Good to see you're still hanging out
here, helping out we'uns young fellers. (I'm only a bit over 2
kilofortnights old. :-)

--
Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada

[Moe Trin]

On 07 Nov 2019 02:57:48 -0400, in the Usenet newsgroup comp.dcom.modems, in

article <87woccb...@roadgrime.nodomain.nowhere>, Mike Spencer wrote:

>Just dropping in. Modem is working fine.

Good to hear it

>Hey, Old Guy (Moe Trin), thanks again for getting me on-line a few
>years ago

My recollection suggest 2015, Glad I was able to help.

>helping out we'uns young fellers. (I'm only a bit over 2
>kilofortnights old. :-)

Hey, I'm only in my early 50s... if you count in hex (or a bit
past 2.5 gigasecs). ;-} A bigger problem is that I've lost
a lot of my sight (macular degeneration), so I no longer drive,
and reading (a joy since age 5 or so) is difficult.

Old guy

[Mike Spencer]

Moe Trin <ibup...@painkiller.example.tld.invalid> writes:

> Hey, I'm only in my early 50s... if you count in hex (or a bit
> past 2.5 gigasecs). ;-} A bigger problem is that I've lost
> a lot of my sight (macular degeneration), so I no longer drive,
> and reading (a joy since age 5 or so) is difficult.

That's hard. Guessing that there are tricks with a computer screen
that may help, at least a bit, that conventional dead-tree print
doesn't offer.

Well, my mother died not too long before she reached her
25th birthday. [1] We can hope you'll do as well.

- Mike

[1] Born Feb 29, 1904 :-)

[Moe Trin]

On 09 Nov 2019 03:10:53 -0400, in the Usenet newsgroup comp.dcom.modems, in
article <87d0e1r...@roadgrime.nodomain.nowhere>, Mike Spencer wrote:

>Moe Trin <ibup...@painkiller.example.tld.invalid> writes:

>> A bigger problem is that I've lost a lot of my sight (macular
>> degeneration),

>That's hard.

Yup. Basically, I can see _letters_ but not words. Pixel loss.

]] and reading (a joy since age 5 or so) is difficult.

>Guessing that there are tricks with a computer screen that may
>help, at least a bit,

[kepler ~]$ whatis xmag
xmag (1) - magnify parts of the screen
[kepler ~]$

But I use 'tab completion' (in the shell) a lot. Using 'evince'
as a .pdf reader also allows me to set print size.

>that conventional dead-tree print doesn't offer.

A 2 by 4 inch 4x magnifying glass helps

>Well, my mother died not too long before she reached her
>25th birthday. [1]

Till I read the footnote, I'm thinking... what base? 36?? (0-9a-z)

>We can hope you'll do as well.

Family history does matter - my mother made it to 92, and my older
sister is still ticking. My father didn't reach mid-50s (like
his parents and brothers) due to un-diagnosed high blood pressure
(easily controlled today).

Old guy

[Lain]

I used a US Robotics 56k serial modem that I found in a recycling bin up until around 2018 as there were few other viable options for Internet access in the place I was living. I think I'd heard the modem in question refered to as the US Robotics Sportster online. I also briefly used a PCI softmodem before finding the USR one but the PCI modem turned out to be useless to me as I became interested in GNU/Linux and the BSD's.
It was sort of frustrating as a teenager seeing most of my friends who lived in town and had super-fast cable and DSL connections but I got along quite well regardless and I believe that being limited in this regard was beneficial to my learning about technology and computers. I remember installing and configuring Debian on an old beige-box PC that I found for free and I was elated that I could simultaneously chat on IRC, listen to (very compressed) Internet radio streams and browse websites using Lynx over crusty copper telephone lines which limited the modem handshake to around something like 28k on a good day (sometimes it was 26 or even 14 depending on the access number I used). If needed I could download large files and such at school and copy them over to my computer at home anyway.
At the end of the day using the 'net over a modem is still very feasible for technical users, ascetics and/or those who are not simply not interested in consuming large amounts of media. I'd like to go back but nowadays a simple coax cable connection costs less than a copper POTS line here. There are also a lot of complexities due to the proprietary nature of cable modems that concern me, in contrast to the robustness and simplicity of a serial modem.

Anyways, apologies for going on a sort of story-telling tangent but I hope you all have a good day. Cheers.
--
Lain <la...@nowhere.net>