It wasn't until 2001 that I got my first cable connection. A blazing 1.5 mbps from comcast. I don't even remember what the upload was back then. Imagine bring up a web page at that speed today. Even 3g phones are faster.
The video was as painful to watch as it was to live through at the time. You don't hear anyone reminiscing about the "good old days" of the internet, if they did it would not be for this era.
This was pre win95... Early 90's if iirc. BBs's, ascii based graphics. I vaguely recall using lynx browser with my first isp, which surprisingly is still around - Ripco Communications . And yet today, a speed test results in something like this;
This was pre win95... Early 90's if iirc. BBs's, ascii based graphics. I vaguely recall using lynx browser with my first isp, which surprisingly is still around - Ripco Communications . And yet today, a speed test results in something like this; View attachment 66954
Your speed test result is better than the combined isdn throughput at the command center for the large bank I was working in 2002-2007
I didn't have cable until the early 2000s and dialup for residential was most definitely still in widespread use in 1998-1999. This article sums up what my experience was at the time, both as an end user and fledgling professional in the industry. They note that broadband (ie dsl and cable) connections saw their greatest jump in 2000-2003. It's in the graphic under 'broadband'. I don't have any hard data that supports or disproves this infographic, other than it lines up the exact same timelines I remember living. This would be the Windows 98 SE and ME era, XP came just as dsl/cable were becoming common in people's homes. During the early 2000s there was the perfect confluence of faster home computers, internet speeds, (eventually) wireless, and better windows/internet software. It was also when online gaming really exploded, with emerging low cost 3d graphics cards. This helped justify for many the added cost of the more expensive dsl/cable connections (lower latency = better first person shooter experience). For some , illegal downloads (p2p and eventually bittorrent) motivated the move to a faster internet connection. It was truly a home tech boom from roughly 1999 through sometime late 2000s.
Hahahah! Just imagine driving your car with the engine limited to 500 rpm and 1st gear. Today's 3G cell phone speeds would be considered broadband back then.
I remember working for an electronics company (Elek-Tek for those from this area) back in '97 or 98. Was at corporate hq that week working on some systems. Had to download drivers, was in awe and shock when it was grabbing it at a blazing 700KB/s (vs ~5KB/s for dialup).
ha yes... i remember dial up... we had to get two phone lines since my mom had to be on the phone so much for their business... didn't have it long before getting dsl... that was such an upgrade.. i remember setting up multiple car picture downloads as a kid to download overnight... "massive" ones like 1024x768 images ..
sites on slow connections load much slower these days though due to the magnitudes of extra media on sites vs sites from the 90s...
Noises were used to establish the connection [the very next video that autoplayed explained it]. It's very clever use of a very antiquated (analog phone) technology. Faxes use the same functions over a phone line to transmit the image to the other fax machine.
I have periodic need for a fax machine. Used to use a traditional fax with an ATA until that stopped working. These days I have haylafax installed on an asterisk server. It's all virtual and works well over voip.
arstechnica.com
