Scott Dorsey wrote:
>> The Great Idea F>>> Dennis C. Hayes invented the PC modem in 1977, establishing the
>>> critical technology that allowed today's online and Internet
>>> industries to emerge and grow.
>> Well, THERE is some pretty impressive revisionism. Hey, by 1977 there
>> were even kits like the Pennywhistle aimed directly at the
>> microcomputer community. --scott
> Yes, but wasn't a key difference between the two that the early modems
> like the Pennywhistle, etc. were more or less totally transparent to
> the data stream and the connection had to be manually dialed on a
> separate phone's keypad, the user had to listen for an answer tone
> before hitting "connect", manually disconnected at the end of the > call, etc.
... which is not too far from the description of the old Bell offering: you got (for $25/month rental) a (huge!) 103A2 with a separate key instrument; if you wanted to originate a call you either dialed it manually or paid $BIGBUCKS per month for an autodialer (the model number of which I've forgotten). Perhaps it's an artifact of excessive age, but every time someone refers to a PNG file I have to restrain myself from "correcting" it to PND (Present Next Digit -- the line from the autodialer to the computer telling it that the autodialer is ready to receive the next digit of the telephone number to be called).
Joe Morris