I Remember Modems

With the announcement this week that US Robotics is being purchased by a VC company, I began tripping down memory lane thinking about all the times that I have come across USR and used their products over the years. Having been left for the dead after 3Com had consumed them and then split them out, it is nice to see that USR is still hanging in there. USR has been around as long as I have been in this business. They were one of the early vendors at the dawn of the PC era, and helped to get the whole BBS industry moving along with their modem racks and deals with Compuserve (remember them). They began their corporate life making modems, taking their name from a company in Asimov’s robot SF stories. By the way, these are the very same stories that generated a flop of a movie starring Will Smith last year. I won’t make any further comments other than I was a big Asimov fan in my youth and read most if not all of his first 80 or so books.

Nowadays USR is more than just modems, and they sell a full line of access products including routers. We even use one of their print servers here in Tom’s HQ.

But modems ? Aren’t they so, well, last century ? You know, that empty jack on the back of your computer that looks like the plug you put your Ethernet cable in, only smaller ? Who uses a modem these days, anyway ?

I was trying to think of the last time I actually plugged in my modem and did something useful with it. It must be at least several years. I don’t currently have any Internet dial-up access accounts, but I can remember when I wouldn’t be out on the road without at least one or two of them. I don’t think I have even tried out the fax software on my current laptop, and I avoid all hotels with just dial-up when I travel. You could say that I am a broadband snob, but the truth be told, I just don’t want to deal with modems anymore.

I know, there are many places on the planet where modems are still in popular use, especially in those countries where broadband is expensive, inconvenient, or impossible to obtain. I feel sorry for you, believe me. The only sounds I hear from my computer these days are the annoying ones that come with Windows starting up, rather than those beeps and squeals as the modems synch up.

Back in the day, I was a modem maven. I still have (rooting around my ancient history files in my desk for a moment) a crib sheet that I put together back when I was working in IT support land that had the essential Hayes AT command set for dialing a 1200 bps modem. I could do all sorts of tricks with these, and it was always a challenge when I got ahold of a new modem to try to push its performance to the limit and get the maximum throughput from it. Sorta like overclocking your CPU, only a lot easier because all you needed was a couple of software commands and a cooperative phone line. If you want to get an idea of what these things looked like, here is one reference page .

Now, the word Hayes is from another modem company that was popular in those early days, named after a very flamboyant CEO who went down equally in style. Just to put things in perspective, I think those early modems went for around $500 in the mid 1980s. Now of course modems come in practically everything but cereal boxes, and you can’t buy a computer that doesn’t have one built-in, even if you don’t need it.

Now we see the word modem usually attached to DSL, which gives it a whole ’nuther context and life beyond merely connecting analog phone lines.

I am happy for USR, really I am. I hope their new owners can try to polish the company and bring back some of the luster from the early days. Or maybe get Will Smith as their new spokesman. In the meantime, if you have some good modem stories that you want to share, drop me a line, I’d love to hear them.