I find these so mesmerizing, I never used a modem in its days and I can only imagine how exiting (or slow) must've been to connect to the internet back when it was still a novelty :D
Exciting and slow, yes. On the bright side, most web pages were just text with images that would be considered microscopic at modern resolutions so the load times weren't actually so awful. There were forums where you'd get outright banned for posting animated GIFs because it would lag the entire thread. Good times!
@@Tbird761 yeah I kind of wish I grew up more in the 90s. The internet today seems mostly a corporate machine; long gone are the wild west days of creative freedom, brought about & innovated by parallel underground movements in tech, science, art etc. I mean it's brought around some good communications, legal, and other standards, and like... we get to enjoy this video on this well polished platform, but could this have been done with a less corporate outcome, I wonder. Web3 just seems like such a mechanistic farce of corporations monetizing that feeling we had about the shiny web1/2 innovations
My father says one thing he certainly does not miss about the 90s is its internet. He says it was slow, expensive, with far less information and possibilities than today. However, back then there were also more opportunities to make money from the internet itself since it all brand new. Since then there has been the Dot-Com bubble, outsourcing to India, and now ChatGPT.
This is definitely the wrong place to ask, but I can't figure this out by myself. I saw on the reddit post you linked in one of your other videos that you use the Grandstream HT802, and on mine I can't get more than a 9600 baud connection, are there any settings you recommend?
Sure! First thing, I've had much better luck with VoIP providers where I have a low ping to the sip server. The one I use now is around 10ms round trip from me, and produces pretty good results. As for settings, there are obviously a boatload of them, so I'll only include the ones that I'm fairly certain are the ones that matter for modems below: Use First Matching Vocoder in 200OK SDP: No Preferred Vocoder: Set all of them to PCMU (if in North America), or PCMA (if in Europe) Voice Frames Per TX: 1 VAD: No Symmetric RTP: No Fax Mode: Pass-Through Re-Invite After Fax Tone Detected: Disabled Jitter Buffer Type: Fixed Jitter Buffer Length: High (I go back and forth on this, sometimes I feel like Low is best, play around a bit) SRTP Mode: Disabled (if you're worried about security though, maybe enable this) SLIC Setting: Depends on your device, but I use USA 1 for my devices which are generally USA/Canada Using this I can get full V.34 (generally 31,200) to Level 29 BBS and I'm even able to establish V.90 connections to a nearby ISP. Remember though, if the _other_ end is also on VoIP it'll be harder to get a good connection, especially if they haven't been as careful about setting it up as you have. Good luck!
@@retrocet thank you very much for replying, I'll have to try these when I get home! Edit: I changed them and I was able to get past 20K this time, thank you for the help!
Hey! So I'm a youngin who's been looking into dial-up stuff and I noticed, on the K56 Flex at the very beginning of the handshake it included what I think is the sounds that determine accepted transmission standards? Regardless of what it is, why did only that modem include that sound? I figured it was a requirement but given no other modem had it it seems if anything like an extra thing. Thanks and sorry if this comment was wordy 😅
that’s the sound of the v.8bis transaction specifically-on the K56 Flex you couldn’t turn it off, but on most other modems you could, and doing so saved a few seconds when you were trying to connect. the perks of v.8bis over regular v.8 often weren’t enough to warrant the extra amount of time it took, it’s just a slightly larger array of connection types that it can support for very uncommon cases that the average user would not encounter
It is now! I just got my hands on a Patton 2960/24 RAS that supports V.92. None of the cards I had prior to this supported anything above V.90, and it's taken some doing to get my hands on V.92-capable gear. I'll put something together once I have it up and running!
there were variations of this too. depending on your connection quality with the CO and your destination line. it’ll ping like sonar. vasili, one ping only, please.
Thanks for documenting this fascinating but thankfully vansished part of history. 💜 Listening to this captures the anticipation of connecting to the adventurous world I perceived the www to be at the time.
Thank you for sharing these sounds, this brings back the pre-broadband experiences. From memory when my home modem could dial a 56K speed, the handshake sound is most like the Hayes V.90 one in this video. The sound from 2:35 to 2:37 sounds like it's struggling lol.
That sound from those timestamps indicates to the modems, both server and client, that a connection has been successfully established although in most cases with dial-up modems that sound usually isn't audible.
That sound called the DIL sequence which first appear on V.90 protocol. Difference chipset gave difference DIL sequence, the most famous were the Rockwell chipset which gave the "struggling" DIL sound that you mentioned. But the most interesting one must be the Texas Instrument chipset used by USRobotics modems which produce a "Bong...... Bong......" DIL sound.
24oo baud was the sound at my house when I was a kid - BBSes - I remember upgrading to a 14.4kbps and was blown away with how fast the terminal window drew!
Hearing that K56 flex tone brought me straight back to being a kid, waiting 25 minutes for a game to load on the cartoon network site only for someone to ring the home phone and mess it all up, damn, got me feeling old af Weird I had no idea at the time what type of modem or internet connection we even had yet I recognise it instantly
I forgot ALL about those softmodems. I probably had 1 or 2 in my lifetime. I always tried to stick with modems with built in controller, keeping the load off the cpu. Last modem I had before moving on to DSL was 3M USR 56k internal and it had a dedicated controller built in. Loved it. Sad to see it go but time to move on.
Yeah I remember avoiding them because they hurt gaming performance, especially on older machines. I'm finding that they're still kinda crap, even with a modern processor though. I tend to get more consistent performance out of my external V.92 USR modem than I get out of the USB one. It's not entirely clear to me how much age is affecting these devices though - I actually did a full re-cap of one of my V.92 modems that was connecting more slowly than a very similar one, but it didn't seem to make any measurable difference.
This transported me right back to 2002! Our cousins had internet in the 90s, so we were late to the game, but hearing this sound for the first time, in our own home, brought me immense joy!
I remember as a kid those sounds! Haha, nothing but a smile and so many memories. I remember learning about DSL and some individuals has ADSL and T1,T3 connections. Remember in last elementary school we finally got cable. My mind couldn’t understand going from KBs to MBs.
omg ADSL. That's a string of letters I haven't seen or heard since I was a teenager in 2001-03 ish. Memories! It was a new and faster way to connect to the internet, my home did not have ADSL though... then LAN took over as the better way to connect to the internet. Let's just say my home didn't upgrade from dial-up until sometime after wifi was an established and a preferred way to connect to the internet.
this let me recollect my memories from connecting to BBS by DOS, then Windows 95 time, "Where are you want to go, today?" Netscape, IE3.0 IE4.0, 4.12 Windows 95 OSR2.... etc...
I never had any separate modems for dial up, at least from what I remember as a kid. We just had a PCI modem that was placed in the computer. A new area we moved to didn't have DSL at least and was just dial up, until may be a year or so later I heard from an old neighbor they now got DSL. Don't have much to add really, but one service had a time limit after may be 4 hours or so. Started to learn the process of not clicking on anything when I know the time is about to be up. You never knew pain until you see it takes 10 hours to download iTunes.
those V.90 sounds sure do bring back memories followed by "Welcome....You've Got Mail" - funny how when you were trying to get the 53.3 connection to work, if one of the numbers you dialed sounded funny or gave one of the error correction tones, you'd kill it and grab a new line and try a new number. We knew that error was unstable and we would likely get kicked off while trying to find someone new to meet in the local chat room after asking A/S/L. 🤣
On those days, USRobotics really expertise on developing 56K protocol. x2 protocol was really cool with fast handshake and connection (mostly 53333 bps). K56flex protocol was somewhat looks like less advanced to me due to long handshake and usually obtained slower connection speed.
Actually the 56K here is a digital modem with the other side being an analog modem. The second ISDN modem on the table is just acting like the local node converting the analog call to a digital one - it's not actually taking part in the data transmission or anything.
Fantastic job mate. Exactly year ago I focused on the same idea, but all-cisco backhaul: C2811 w VIC3-2FXS replaced then with VIC3-4FXS (VIC2/VIC1-FXS cards has inferior DAC quality and 44k limited) + E1/T1 WVIC and AS5300 w/MICA modems as a V.90/V.92 digital modem provider. Got fairly stable 54666/31200 V.90/V.92, no digital uplink V.92 support unfortunately with MICA modem at all. USRobotics Courier and Sportsters are the top performers, with ZyXell NEO next.
The tech was called IDSL. Was somewhat popular in Ukraine, you had to buy a pair of modems and gift them to the phone company. Offered about 112 kbit/s throughput, lower if a phone was on the line. AFAIK the modems lacked the speaker so no fancy handshake sounds.
My ranking of all of them, based on how fast they connect: x2 (by a massive landslide) Agere USB Softmodem Xircom Hayes Intel Zoom Lucent Softmodem Creative Labs US Robotics K56
I believe from what Retrocet has said on other videos that this is just a sound made to signify the connection is good, and that most companies just kind of do whatever sound they want. Sometimes it's a bell, sometimes it's like just a beep, and for my grandmother it was a weird phone ringing sound.
That's called the V.90 Digital Impairment Learning sequence (DIL). I've got a bit written about it in the description, but the short version is that it's a set of sounds sent by the server modem at the request of the client modem used to analyze how the digital signal is being handled, which is then used to adjust the connection speed. The sounds themselves aren't part of the V.90 spec, rather it just specifies that the client modem should request what it wants. As a result, each model of modem sounds a little different! The one you've linked there is a pretty distinctive example of the Agere soft modems, which became very common in the late dialup era, so they're very recognizable :)
The "sonar-like" (also known as the echoing bip) DIL sequence is actually one of the more interesting ones since not only does it have a fixed non-random waveform, but it has a fast variant for V.92's Quick Connect feature (which is probably only possible due to the fixed waveform).
Yeah that different variant of the DIL for V.92 (for some modems) is why I'm getting a V.92-capable modem for the server-side. I'd really like to record it and maybe do some comparison. Fedex should be delivering it tomorrow!
would you believe me that sometime when i'm talking trough my mobile phone i hear something like that... now i kinda understand that the infrastructure of my operator is done whit old stuff LOL
Really love your videos, nice seeing that there are other people who are just as fascinated by old tech as I am lol. Any chance you could do a video on configuring your setup? I've got a lot of the same hardware connected to a Windows 2003 server I've been working on getting configured when I have free time.
I'm doing a couple videos on this now! I'm trying to decide how to break them down, as the one about just setting up modems is already getting long, so it may be a 'connecting modems together' video and then a 'configuring your machines' video, with both Linux and Windows servers covered.
Definitely the sound I remember best was the Hayes V.90. Basically every 56k modem I used back in the day had that same kind of handshake sound. I don't recall much of what the sound was like from my 14.4k or 33.6k modems, but I know that I had 56k for the longest amount of the time that we had dial-up internet, which we first got in 1994. I do recall that the length/delay/timing of some of the test tones were a bit different, but they were the same tones.
Yup same here. I’d always be sitting there listening, “ah damn it’s gonna log me in at like 30,000bps right now” or “ohh yeah that sounds like a good connection 49,998bps”.
I'm in the middle of rerecording with a pass though an Asterisk server so I can record the two sides separately. Once I'm done moving I'll hopefully get a video out with the more detailed recording
You seem to be an expert on modems so I figured I'd ask. What would cause a handshake to fail? (I thought you'd know because I have an old USR Sportster modem that for whatever reason never completes a handshake)
There are lots of possible reasons that a handshake could fail, but I bet we can suss out which it is. I'd be more inclined to blame the phone line connecting the modems than the modem itself. Are either you or the other end of the connection using a VoIP phone line? Often times these use audio proxies that aren't super friendly for making modem connections, particularly high speed ones. What happens is that the modem tries higher speeds, and gradually steps down - e.g. it might start at V.90, then drop to V.34, then to V.32, etc. The problem is that there is a timer that defines how long the modem will wait for a connection before giving up, and sometimes it expires before your modem finds a connection mode that'll work. By default this is 60s on most Sportsters - you can check your value by running the command `ATS7?`. You can try to set this to a higher value (for example, run `ATS7=120` to double it). This timer-expires-before-it-can-make-a-connection issue can also happen on noisy or damaged traditional phone lines. Another possibility is that the modem has settings saved that disable certain connection types/parameters that the other modem requires. There are dip switches on the modem that'll indicate if it should use NVRAM or factory settings on startup. If it's on the NVRAM setting you could try putting the modem back to 'factory' settings. Run `AT&F1` to load the defaults, and then `AT&W0` to save them. Then give the connection another shot. Getting into less likely possibilities, the power supply you're using might be insufficient for the modem to operate. I have an early-generation 28800 Sportster that requires a 20VAC power supply, while every other Sporster in my collection uses either 9VAC or 12VAC. The weird thing is that the one that needs 20V starts up and even dials with a 12V supply, but then resets itself while trying to connect. Took me a while to figure that one out since it didn't come with a power supply. One more is that the modem _might_ have bad capacitors. That said, I own 15+ Sportsters, and none have ever required recapping. It's not impossible, but it's unlikely.
@@retrocet Alright, thanks! I'm trying to connect to NetZero's dial up servers but for whatever reason it won't connect. I'm glad it's not the modem. I assume it's probably NetZero's modems that aren't working.
I remember the K56Flex handshake well. What purpose does the tone at 0:44 have? I once had a Conexant V.90 modem that still responded to that when most others ignore it.
It's a V.8bis transaction! The modems are giving each other a list of things they support, and then selecting the best option that is common between them before starting the actual handshake. I don't think most V.90 modems bother with it. Even the Zoom 56K modem in that clip will ignore it if I've set it to only use V.90, whereas it responds if K56 Flex is enabled.
I had a Tecra 500CS back in the day! I opted for the nicer screen and CD drive when I decided to buy it again though ;) I love that machine to bits. That whole line of machines was super solid.
This was a 10/10 video, but once frank the snake made his debut this became a 20/10 video. All jokes aside, this is very interesting sounds to hear, Kind of satisfying to be completely honest, thanks for making this.
Aww, Frank! You cute little snek you! (I actually watch Dankpods, so i've seen her a few times. Wade would be proud to see that picture of her coming into view on that webbrowser.)
What equipment did you use and how was it setup in order to support 56K in house? I know 56K needs digital from the ISP back to analog, so more than just two general modems must be used. I’d be interested in setting up a 90s dialup recreation for myself. Thanks.
2:40 Haha that remind me of what I grew up hearing when trying to get on the internet. I had a 56k modem in my parents Gateway, but I was lucky to get 14.4k
I can't believe that this was actually the sound that played. I'm curious about the story behind it, was it a technical issue or a purposeful thing? We need answers
I think I should probably try to put together a video explaining this since there have been a number of questions about it. Absent that though the answer is that the sounds are a mix of encoded data used to negotiate the connection, as well as some test tones to determine the quality of the phone line connection between the modems. All of it has a specific purpose and meaning!
Yeah, I think you're referring the the V.8bis transaction ahead of the actual negotiation. Only my Dialfire 2977 does it, and it disables V.8bis if I disable K56 Flex. Based on that, I suspect that you'd only hear it if you were calling an ISP with K56 Flex enabled.
I find these so mesmerizing, I never used a modem in its days and I can only imagine how exiting (or slow) must've been to connect to the internet back when it was still a novelty :D
Exciting and slow, yes. On the bright side, most web pages were just text with images that would be considered microscopic at modern resolutions so the load times weren't actually so awful. There were forums where you'd get outright banned for posting animated GIFs because it would lag the entire thread. Good times!
It was really something special. You were part of a cool tech-oriented brotherhood in a time when regular people didn't even know what email was.
Regular people still act like they don't know what email is, sometimes...
@@Tbird761 yeah I kind of wish I grew up more in the 90s. The internet today seems mostly a corporate machine; long gone are the wild west days of creative freedom, brought about & innovated by parallel underground movements in tech, science, art etc.
I mean it's brought around some good communications, legal, and other standards, and like... we get to enjoy this video on this well polished platform, but could this have been done with a less corporate outcome, I wonder. Web3 just seems like such a mechanistic farce of corporations monetizing that feeling we had about the shiny web1/2 innovations
My father says one thing he certainly does not miss about the 90s is its internet. He says it was slow, expensive, with far less information and possibilities than today.
However, back then there were also more opportunities to make money from the internet itself since it all brand new. Since then there has been the Dot-Com bubble, outsourcing to India, and now ChatGPT.
2:34
My neurons processing my moves in the morning.
For the Intel modem, I was half expecting the V.90 DIL portion to use the Intel jingle (or at least a portion of it). Good video
Wow this takes me back
I can already see the dancing baby
Oh wow, an Armada M300! I had one of those for a few years - seriously nice computer, for its time!
Back in the day my dad used to have like a box full of DSL filters cuz that's how bad the DSL problem was
Should have added a *Racal-Vadic* modem as well. I worked for them in Silicon Valley '85 to '89
Any particular model you'd like to hear? I haven't got one in the collection, but they look reasonably obtainable!
@@retrocet - The 2400PA & the 9600PA
I help design both between '85 thru '89.
I was on limited funds during these times. All my modems were hayes, that 33.6 and 56k were what i could afford at 17.
5:44 dankpods moment
frank
That moment when alot happens in a small timespan and you have to process it all
This is definitely the wrong place to ask, but I can't figure this out by myself. I saw on the reddit post you linked in one of your other videos that you use the Grandstream HT802, and on mine I can't get more than a 9600 baud connection, are there any settings you recommend?
Sure!
First thing, I've had much better luck with VoIP providers where I have a low ping to the sip server. The one I use now is around 10ms round trip from me, and produces pretty good results. As for settings, there are obviously a boatload of them, so I'll only include the ones that I'm fairly certain are the ones that matter for modems below:
Use First Matching Vocoder in 200OK SDP: No
Preferred Vocoder: Set all of them to PCMU (if in North America), or PCMA (if in Europe)
Voice Frames Per TX: 1
VAD: No
Symmetric RTP: No
Fax Mode: Pass-Through
Re-Invite After Fax Tone Detected: Disabled
Jitter Buffer Type: Fixed
Jitter Buffer Length: High (I go back and forth on this, sometimes I feel like Low is best, play around a bit)
SRTP Mode: Disabled (if you're worried about security though, maybe enable this)
SLIC Setting: Depends on your device, but I use USA 1 for my devices which are generally USA/Canada
Using this I can get full V.34 (generally 31,200) to Level 29 BBS and I'm even able to establish V.90 connections to a nearby ISP.
Remember though, if the _other_ end is also on VoIP it'll be harder to get a good connection, especially if they haven't been as careful about setting it up as you have.
Good luck!
@@retrocet thank you very much for replying, I'll have to try these when I get home!
Edit: I changed them and I was able to get past 20K this time, thank you for the help!
2:33 what's going on with the sound here?
Can you explain how to create a 56k server?
very nice!
wee waah woooshshshsh blop blop ... WELCOME!!! YOU'VE GOT MAIL!!
tfw you have to ask dad for permission to get on the internet because it ties up the phone line
Is there any way to build DIY version of V.90 or V.30 or at least 300 baud modem?
Hey! So I'm a youngin who's been looking into dial-up stuff and I noticed, on the K56 Flex at the very beginning of the handshake it included what I think is the sounds that determine accepted transmission standards? Regardless of what it is, why did only that modem include that sound? I figured it was a requirement but given no other modem had it it seems if anything like an extra thing. Thanks and sorry if this comment was wordy 😅
that’s the sound of the v.8bis transaction specifically-on the K56 Flex you couldn’t turn it off, but on most other modems you could, and doing so saved a few seconds when you were trying to connect. the perks of v.8bis over regular v.8 often weren’t enough to warrant the extra amount of time it took, it’s just a slightly larger array of connection types that it can support for very uncommon cases that the average user would not encounter
you can hear a majority of these modems deciding the transmission standards during the echo cancellation tone rather than before it
@@MidiMaze178 Thank you so much!
Is it possible to feature V.92 aswell?
It is now! I just got my hands on a Patton 2960/24 RAS that supports V.92. None of the cards I had prior to this supported anything above V.90, and it's taken some doing to get my hands on V.92-capable gear. I'll put something together once I have it up and running!
@@retrocet Thank you so much!
GAH! Internet Explorer! Kill it with fire!
😆😆👏👏👏👏👏👏💯 sweet years😆
Frank? Is that Ozzie frank
Where is V.92?
I'm still working on getting server side V.92 gear. It's not proving easy, unfortunately. :(
i dont get why this is a flex those speeds are trash
Bro the wait just to play flash games. Watching videos over and over while it buffered the next frame. Those were the good old days.
not entirely sure if video sharing was all too popular since the internet speed was so slow
5:26 if you could turn the feeling of hitting your funnybone into a sound
there were variations of this too. depending on your connection quality with the CO and your destination line. it’ll ping like sonar.
vasili, one ping only, please.
Thanks for documenting this fascinating but thankfully vansished part of history. 💜
Listening to this captures the anticipation of connecting to the adventurous world I perceived the www to be at the time.
Thanks for listening! I'm trying my best to capture these sounds for posterity. Eventually it'll be very difficult to ever recreate them!
Thank you for sharing these sounds, this brings back the pre-broadband experiences.
From memory when my home modem could dial a 56K speed, the handshake sound is most like the Hayes V.90 one in this video. The sound from 2:35 to 2:37 sounds like it's struggling lol.
That sound from those timestamps indicates to the modems, both server and client, that a connection has been successfully established although in most cases with dial-up modems that sound usually isn't audible.
That's exactly how it was, but sounded a bit different. Same thing though.
Hayes V.90 is definitely the closest.
That sound called the DIL sequence which first appear on V.90 protocol. Difference chipset gave difference DIL sequence, the most famous were the Rockwell chipset which gave the "struggling" DIL sound that you mentioned. But the most interesting one must be the Texas Instrument chipset used by USRobotics modems which produce a "Bong...... Bong......" DIL sound.
A fellow DankPods viewer, I see.
But really tho, this video is really interesting. I enjoyed it!
24oo baud was the sound at my house when I was a kid - BBSes - I remember upgrading to a 14.4kbps and was blown away with how fast the terminal window drew!
Hearing that K56 flex tone brought me straight back to being a kid, waiting 25 minutes for a game to load on the cartoon network site only for someone to ring the home phone and mess it all up, damn, got me feeling old af
Weird I had no idea at the time what type of modem or internet connection we even had yet I recognise it instantly
I forgot ALL about those softmodems. I probably had 1 or 2 in my lifetime. I always tried to stick with modems with built in controller, keeping the load off the cpu. Last modem I had before moving on to DSL was 3M USR 56k internal and it had a dedicated controller built in. Loved it. Sad to see it go but time to move on.
Yeah I remember avoiding them because they hurt gaming performance, especially on older machines. I'm finding that they're still kinda crap, even with a modern processor though. I tend to get more consistent performance out of my external V.92 USR modem than I get out of the USB one.
It's not entirely clear to me how much age is affecting these devices though - I actually did a full re-cap of one of my V.92 modems that was connecting more slowly than a very similar one, but it didn't seem to make any measurable difference.
As a Linux user we called Softmodems something else. We called them WinModems.
@@athstreamsandmore - I used to call them that too. I think I picked up softmodem term somewhere. ;)
bluds have the worst cpu that he needed to move the load
Thanks for Sharing. Nice Profile picture by the way.
Thanks for watching!
This transported me right back to 2002! Our cousins had internet in the 90s, so we were late to the game, but hearing this sound for the first time, in our own home, brought me immense joy!
I remember as a kid those sounds! Haha, nothing but a smile and so many memories. I remember learning about DSL and some individuals has ADSL and T1,T3 connections. Remember in last elementary school we finally got cable. My mind couldn’t understand going from KBs to MBs.
omg ADSL. That's a string of letters I haven't seen or heard since I was a teenager in 2001-03 ish. Memories! It was a new and faster way to connect to the internet, my home did not have ADSL though... then LAN took over as the better way to connect to the internet. Let's just say my home didn't upgrade from dial-up until sometime after wifi was an established and a preferred way to connect to the internet.
Fascinating! I'd love to have a setup like this to mess around with.
And is that Frank the Snake from Dankpods?
It sure is ;)
amazing
two fellow dankpods watchers
Wut where?
@@N1ko0L last 5 seconds it loads in
She's also featured in ASCII form in the previous video: ua-cam.com/video/xalTFH5ht-k/v-deo.html
The Agere's DIL sounds really different... More melodious...
this let me recollect my memories from connecting to BBS by DOS, then Windows 95 time, "Where are you want to go, today?" Netscape, IE3.0 IE4.0, 4.12 Windows 95 OSR2.... etc...
I never had any separate modems for dial up, at least from what I remember as a kid. We just had a PCI modem that was placed in the computer. A new area we moved to didn't have DSL at least and was just dial up, until may be a year or so later I heard from an old neighbor they now got DSL. Don't have much to add really, but one service had a time limit after may be 4 hours or so. Started to learn the process of not clicking on anything when I know the time is about to be up. You never knew pain until you see it takes 10 hours to download iTunes.
those V.90 sounds sure do bring back memories followed by "Welcome....You've Got Mail" - funny how when you were trying to get the 53.3 connection to work, if one of the numbers you dialed sounded funny or gave one of the error correction tones, you'd kill it and grab a new line and try a new number. We knew that error was unstable and we would likely get kicked off while trying to find someone new to meet in the local chat room after asking A/S/L. 🤣
That takes me back... didn't get broadband until 2005. At one time I owned one of those Xircom modems, the one that fits into a slot in the laptop.
Holy crap that's the fastest handshake I've ever heard! 0:04
On those days, USRobotics really expertise on developing 56K protocol. x2 protocol was really cool with fast handshake and connection (mostly 53333 bps). K56flex protocol was somewhat looks like less advanced to me due to long handshake and usually obtained slower connection speed.
Can you do one for the sound where the modem doesn't get an answer/an answer so bad that it can't connect? I'm gonna be real with you: for music
I'd like to take a shot at faking a 'bad' connection to get exactly this sort of thing. I'll post it if/when I do!
@@retrocet Could you use an attenuator of some sort?
The "true" 56k connection only works with both side ISDN (digital) modems?,Or would it work if one side is ISDN and the other analog?
Actually the 56K here is a digital modem with the other side being an analog modem. The second ISDN modem on the table is just acting like the local node converting the analog call to a digital one - it's not actually taking part in the data transmission or anything.
to me, this is what the internet sounds like.
TNX for this video! More than 23 years last time i listened the X2 handshake TNX!!!!! 🙂
sooo classic. I still remember when I got my 28.8k modem :)
I didn’t get to hear the Bong Bong sound!
Fantastic job mate. Exactly year ago I focused on the same idea, but all-cisco backhaul: C2811 w VIC3-2FXS replaced then with VIC3-4FXS (VIC2/VIC1-FXS cards has inferior DAC quality and 44k limited) + E1/T1 WVIC and AS5300 w/MICA modems as a V.90/V.92 digital modem provider. Got fairly stable 54666/31200 V.90/V.92, no digital uplink V.92 support unfortunately with MICA modem at all. USRobotics Courier and Sportsters are the top performers, with ZyXell NEO next.
Frank the snake?? From Garbage Stream?
I know her from Dankpods, but same Frank ;)
of all the things im nostalgic for im really glad we no longer have to commun with the under world to access the internet
Let me guess the creative labs modem was named the modem blaster 😂
100% it was! I have the box and everything.
Can you maybe try out a 128k connection? I believe there are some ISDN server modems that operate at that protocol, as well as certain modems.
The tech was called IDSL. Was somewhat popular in Ukraine, you had to buy a pair of modems and gift them to the phone company. Offered about 112 kbit/s throughput, lower if a phone was on the line. AFAIK the modems lacked the speaker so no fancy handshake sounds.
My ranking of all of them, based on how fast they connect:
x2 (by a massive landslide)
Agere USB Softmodem
Xircom
Hayes
Intel
Zoom
Lucent Softmodem
Creative Labs
US Robotics
K56
Was it possible to use pulse dial on dial up modem?
Absolutely! You just use the ATDP command instead of ATDT.
@retrocet On the other hand, since I have the intercom box for telephone, will it work to do four numbers instead of eleven numbers?
Yep! Works for any number of digits (up to some very large limit anyway)
5:26 This is most interesting part of the sound, sounds like it's blinking if was correct?
I believe from what Retrocet has said on other videos that this is just a sound made to signify the connection is good, and that most companies just kind of do whatever sound they want. Sometimes it's a bell, sometimes it's like just a beep, and for my grandmother it was a weird phone ringing sound.
That's called the V.90 Digital Impairment Learning sequence (DIL). I've got a bit written about it in the description, but the short version is that it's a set of sounds sent by the server modem at the request of the client modem used to analyze how the digital signal is being handled, which is then used to adjust the connection speed. The sounds themselves aren't part of the V.90 spec, rather it just specifies that the client modem should request what it wants. As a result, each model of modem sounds a little different!
The one you've linked there is a pretty distinctive example of the Agere soft modems, which became very common in the late dialup era, so they're very recognizable :)
The "sonar-like" (also known as the echoing bip) DIL sequence is actually one of the more interesting ones since not only does it have a fixed non-random waveform, but it has a fast variant for V.92's Quick Connect feature (which is probably only possible due to the fixed waveform).
Yeah that different variant of the DIL for V.92 (for some modems) is why I'm getting a V.92-capable modem for the server-side. I'd really like to record it and maybe do some comparison. Fedex should be delivering it tomorrow!
would you believe me that sometime when i'm talking trough my mobile phone i hear something like that... now i kinda understand that the infrastructure of my operator is done whit old stuff LOL
Really love your videos, nice seeing that there are other people who are just as fascinated by old tech as I am lol. Any chance you could do a video on configuring your setup? I've got a lot of the same hardware connected to a Windows 2003 server I've been working on getting configured when I have free time.
I'm doing a couple videos on this now! I'm trying to decide how to break them down, as the one about just setting up modems is already getting long, so it may be a 'connecting modems together' video and then a 'configuring your machines' video, with both Linux and Windows servers covered.
@@retrocet Sweet!
Where could i possibly find the software for the Dialogic Diva card. I cant find it anywhere
I must've lived in too rural of an area.
Because I remember the second half of the connection noises repeating to confirm stability.
wait thats frank from dankpods?? dude best channel ever!
Aye, that's her!
@@retrocet lets go! snakes are the best animals and dankpods is one of the best youtube channels :)
Yeah I'm a big fan of Dankpods, and Frank is super cute.
She's in the non-56K one as well, in ASCII form!
@@retrocet niceee
Ha, save the best for last! That's the one I remember so well!
Hall Kenneth Robinson Nancy Brown Mark
Definitely the sound I remember best was the Hayes V.90. Basically every 56k modem I used back in the day had that same kind of handshake sound. I don't recall much of what the sound was like from my 14.4k or 33.6k modems, but I know that I had 56k for the longest amount of the time that we had dial-up internet, which we first got in 1994. I do recall that the length/delay/timing of some of the test tones were a bit different, but they were the same tones.
Why does the Hayes modem sound different? I only had a external USR 56k and a software modem.
Yup same here. I’d always be sitting there listening, “ah damn it’s gonna log me in at like 30,000bps right now” or “ohh yeah that sounds like a good connection 49,998bps”.
@@SubaruB4RSK Because of the handshake / line testing sounds, certain parts are very distinct from the others.
The client part wasn't amplified enough so we heard only two DIL sequences, Hayes and Agere :(
I'm in the middle of rerecording with a pass though an Asterisk server so I can record the two sides separately. Once I'm done moving I'll hopefully get a video out with the more detailed recording
White William Moore Edward Miller Jason
That Agere USB modem dials like a boss
when ping has sound back then
You seem to be an expert on modems so I figured I'd ask. What would cause a handshake to fail? (I thought you'd know because I have an old USR Sportster modem that for whatever reason never completes a handshake)
There are lots of possible reasons that a handshake could fail, but I bet we can suss out which it is. I'd be more inclined to blame the phone line connecting the modems than the modem itself.
Are either you or the other end of the connection using a VoIP phone line? Often times these use audio proxies that aren't super friendly for making modem connections, particularly high speed ones. What happens is that the modem tries higher speeds, and gradually steps down - e.g. it might start at V.90, then drop to V.34, then to V.32, etc. The problem is that there is a timer that defines how long the modem will wait for a connection before giving up, and sometimes it expires before your modem finds a connection mode that'll work. By default this is 60s on most Sportsters - you can check your value by running the command `ATS7?`. You can try to set this to a higher value (for example, run `ATS7=120` to double it). This timer-expires-before-it-can-make-a-connection issue can also happen on noisy or damaged traditional phone lines.
Another possibility is that the modem has settings saved that disable certain connection types/parameters that the other modem requires. There are dip switches on the modem that'll indicate if it should use NVRAM or factory settings on startup. If it's on the NVRAM setting you could try putting the modem back to 'factory' settings. Run `AT&F1` to load the defaults, and then `AT&W0` to save them. Then give the connection another shot.
Getting into less likely possibilities, the power supply you're using might be insufficient for the modem to operate. I have an early-generation 28800 Sportster that requires a 20VAC power supply, while every other Sporster in my collection uses either 9VAC or 12VAC. The weird thing is that the one that needs 20V starts up and even dials with a 12V supply, but then resets itself while trying to connect. Took me a while to figure that one out since it didn't come with a power supply.
One more is that the modem _might_ have bad capacitors. That said, I own 15+ Sportsters, and none have ever required recapping. It's not impossible, but it's unlikely.
@@retrocet Alright, thanks! I'm trying to connect to NetZero's dial up servers but for whatever reason it won't connect. I'm glad it's not the modem. I assume it's probably NetZero's modems that aren't working.
@@retrocet are you dankpods
The chips on USR Sportster modems always sucks, but the chips on USR Courier modems work well with fast and stable connections.
I remember the K56Flex handshake well. What purpose does the tone at 0:44 have? I once had a Conexant V.90 modem that still responded to that when most others ignore it.
It's a V.8bis transaction! The modems are giving each other a list of things they support, and then selecting the best option that is common between them before starting the actual handshake.
I don't think most V.90 modems bother with it. Even the Zoom 56K modem in that clip will ignore it if I've set it to only use V.90, whereas it responds if K56 Flex is enabled.
I love this! I also love the 500CDT you used, I have a 510CDT and it's a great laptop.
I had a Tecra 500CS back in the day! I opted for the nicer screen and CD drive when I decided to buy it again though ;)
I love that machine to bits. That whole line of machines was super solid.
would love to find a tecra! ive got a 490 and a 320 right now
This was a 10/10 video, but once frank the snake made his debut this became a 20/10 video. All jokes aside, this is very interesting sounds to hear, Kind of satisfying to be completely honest, thanks for making this.
Aww, Frank! You cute little snek you! (I actually watch Dankpods, so i've seen her a few times. Wade would be proud to see that picture of her coming into view on that webbrowser.)
What equipment did you use and how was it setup in order to support 56K in house?
I know 56K needs digital from the ISP back to analog, so more than just two general modems must be used.
I’d be interested in setting up a 90s dialup recreation for myself.
Thanks.
Agere has the coolest one
2:40 Haha that remind me of what I grew up hearing when trying to get on the internet. I had a 56k modem in my parents Gateway, but I was lucky to get 14.4k
lol. I remember having my home office PC setup to call and download my email and then hangup before I got home. 😂
AT+MS=v34!
Death to softmodems!!
Thanks for the vid :)
I can't believe that this was actually the sound that played. I'm curious about the story behind it, was it a technical issue or a purposeful thing? We need answers
I think I should probably try to put together a video explaining this since there have been a number of questions about it.
Absent that though the answer is that the sounds are a mix of encoded data used to negotiate the connection, as well as some test tones to determine the quality of the phone line connection between the modems. All of it has a specific purpose and meaning!
@@retrocet Interesting, you should definitely do something on it even if its a short video. I'm sure alot of us are curious about how it works
@@JohnsonJohnsonJohnson-j6r I've put up the first video of a series that will cover this topic. Check it out if you're interested!
@@retrocet yeah I saw it in my notifications. I currently have exams but I'll have a 5 day break after today, so I'll definitely watch it
great video! sounds great direct from the phone line. are you having them communicate on one wire?
Is that Dank’s Frank?
Aye!
I am addicted to these
Subscribed
Wait no Practical Peripherals mini?
Dialup is awesome!
These are the noises of the 90’s!!!
The second one has the tone like TDS' response. (0:44) Which seems to make the negotiation longer. SoVerNet (now defunct) never did that, IIRC.
Yeah, I think you're referring the the V.8bis transaction ahead of the actual negotiation. Only my Dialfire 2977 does it, and it disables V.8bis if I disable K56 Flex. Based on that, I suspect that you'd only hear it if you were calling an ISP with K56 Flex enabled.
@@retrocet TDS was replying with that in 2003!
It wouldn't surprise me! The V.92 RAS I just picked up was made around then and still has K56 Flex support ;)
Loving these vids!!
Ah. No full handshake :(
i lovr getting tipsy and autoplaying these videos