End of dialup networking
Data Fax Voice Speakerphone CARP in use.
Modem type: Data Fax Voice Speakerphone CARP
Modem inf path: CXTACR~2.INF
Modem inf section: HSFModem1
115200,N,8,1
115200,N,8,1
Initializing modem.
Send: AT<cr>
Recv: <cr><lf>OK<cr><lf>
Interpreted response: Ok
Send: AT&FE0V1S0=0&C1&D2+MR=2;+DR=1;+ER=1;W2<cr>
Recv: <cr><lf>OK<cr><lf>
Interpreted response: Ok
Send: ATS7=60M1+ES=3,0,2;+DS=3;+IFC=2,2;X4<cr>
Recv: <cr><lf>OK<cr><lf>
Interpreted response: Ok
Dialing.
Send: ATDT;<cr>
Recv: <cr><lf>OK<cr><lf>
Interpreted response: Ok
Dialing.
Send: ATDT######<cr>
Recv: <cr><lf>+MCR: V90<cr><lf>
Interpreted response: Informative
Recv: <cr><lf>+MRR: 40000<cr><lf>
Interpreted response: Informative
Recv: <cr><lf>+ER: LAPM<cr><lf>
Interpreted response: Informative
Recv: <cr><lf>+DR: V42B<cr><lf>
Interpreted response: Informative
Recv: <cr><lf>CONNECT 40000<cr><lf>
Interpreted response: Connect
Connection established at 40000bps.
Error-control on.
Data compression on.
Like the smell of a fresh pot of coffee, one of the first things that got me excited me about the internet was the prelude—the gurgling sound of my 56k baud modem. Their complexity, their query strings, their port settings, error correction, and protocols—among a myriad of other things—were perplexing enough for many of us to rush out and buy a copy of Modems for Dummies. Needless to say, I own one too. But that wasn’t enough. Indian users had to contend with bad telephone lines, as Atul Chitnis explained in one of his early articles on PC Quest.
Internet kids from the 80s and the 90s will know that dialup modems were geekware—no less. Settings like this one for example: 8,N,1 (8 data bits, No parity, and 1 stop bit) meant normal people would avoid these like plague; while early adopters, and internet enthusiasts—like Atul—kept kids like myself interested in cyberspace happenings via geek-to-you kind of articles like COMversations in print.1
I’ve been accessing the internet via a dialup network from 1998 to 2002.2 My parents have been on a dialup since 2001 until now. If things go as expected, then, we shall soon be formally bidding adieu to a fine era of dialup networking—out of our lives this week.
Hanging up the modem.
Hardware hangup by lowering DTR.
Recv: <cr><lf>OK<cr><lf>
Interpreted response: Ok
Send: ATH<cr>
Recv: <cr><lf>OK<cr><lf>
Interpreted response: Ok
115200,N,8,1
Session Statistics:
Reads : 356491 bytes
Writes: 9481772 bytes
Data Fax Voice Speakerphone CARP closed.
- Mr Chitnis has since re-published his articles online from COMversations, the name of his column in PC Quest—retaining the nostalgia for the rest of us. [←]
- I’ve been a PC Quest subscriber since 1994; so I read all that stuff long before I could afford a computer to try those myself. [←]