Dial Up Internet on Windows 1.04, using a 1960s modem at 300 bps

This is a Livermore Data Systems Model A, in a hand-made wooden enclosure, circa 1964, running at 300bps. After some restoration, it now operates perfectly. An actual hardware terminal of some sort would probably be more appropriate than the laptop I used here, but this is the oldest machine I have at the moment.

The laptop is a Zenith ZFL-181 from 1987:

* Intel 8088 at 4.7MHz
* 640KB RAM
* 2x 720KB 3.5" Double Density FDDs
* 640x200 Monochrome CGA LCD
* MS-DOS 3.20
* Windows 1.04

0:00 Boot up
0:28 Starting Windows
0:51 Swapping disks
0:59 Loading Terminal
1:28 Modem prep
1:39 Dialing
1:59 Ringing
2:10 Connecting
2:29 Logging in
2:47 Loading Reddit (sped up)
3:01 More loading (real time)

[msr_melon]

Very cool. It's nice seeing old technology function in the modern age!

[EquaTechnologies]

This is the most "back in my day" I have ever seen.

[derpboxstudios]

man used a rotary phone to browse the internet, absolute legend

[IronwingTechHaven]

It's really quite amazing you got a modem from the 1960s to work with a computer that 'new' and today's internet.

[ericdaniel]

I’m old enough to remember when you had to open windows from the DOS prompt, but young enough to have forgotten until this reminded me.

[soldiah]

Wait, so the modem was actually a microphone that listened to the beeps and boops coming from the landline and converting them into bits for the computer to be read?

[LMacNeill]

Man, I haven't used a 300-baud modem since 1984 or '85 when I got a 1200-baud modem for my Commodore 64. LOL. And I don't think I ever used Windows 1.x. I bought my first windows-capable machine in April of 1989, and installed Windows 2.x on it. And a rotary phone? I want to say it was '87 or so since I've had one of those. 🙂 This whole video is one giant nostalgia trip.

[vladislavkaras]

Darn... Cool to see those old technologies in action.
I was born after those, thus quite interesting to see them!
Thanks!

[Relkond]

Reminds me of the first laser printer that I owned.
great quality. I think it got around 6 or 8 PPM, unless I printed something other than straight text - printing images usually topped out at around 4 PPH (pages per hour), on account of the printer using a 9600bps serial port for communication. Great quality, nigh silent compared to other printers, and it lasted for years (I bought it refurbished in the 90s, it was made in the 80s, and I kept it until the PPH print speeds became a problem (well, that and Microsoft deciding windows didn’t need to support it…)

[Tuberex]

Crazy how people pay more for mechanical keyboards now when they were the standard years ago

[nvagn]

Kind of amazing that such old technology was so advanced and still works perfectly fine

[DrBIeed]

Its weird as a 90’s teen having dealt with his fair share of dial-up, until recently I didn’t even know dialing with a rotary dial was possible. After seeing the receiver has to be placed physically on the modem to transfer the sound of the connection it made sense.

[yeppiidev]

it's satisfying to hear the disk r/w (?) sounds 🤩

[andrasidansjon]

Man used a sphinx. Man woke up under a stone. Man drove home from work and man was madly in love with goat.

[melihcelik]

Very cool I've never seen a modem this old. Quite the hack around

[stargazer]

I'm amazed by the number of people who have absolutely no idea what actually happened in this video.

[CaribouEno]

Those acoustic couplers were very prominent in Europe until the 1990ies, where the state telecom providers had all monopolies and did not allow you to connect modems or other equipment but the ones they provided for horrible monthly fees. So the acoustic coupler was the way "around" this as technically you do not connect electrically it to the phone network...

[UFOhunter]

I love watching this work exactly it should and perform its function even today

[xXmikeandikesXx]

Just disconnected my iPhone from acting up wifi to load a video of another device connecting to the internet using dial up. What a time to be alive.

[guytero]

If I remember I started with an 11 baud rate dial up modem and then got the latest 22 baud rate modem and it blew me away how fast it was. Much, much slower than the one here but oh, those days were wonderful.