Flashback - modem days

[Executioner]

I was going through some of my old stuff and found my Courier V Everything modem that I used in the 90's. I even found a printed copy of Crime's email (Flying Penguin remembers this guy), with the recommended settings to play on line.

> CRIME wrote:
>
> > If you load up a terminal program (Windows 95, 98 and NT bring
> > HyperTerminal) and use the query ($) commands, the modem itself will
tell you what commands and settings are available.
> >
> > My string does the following:
> >
> > &F1 - Loads the hardware (RTS/CTS) flow control settings.
> > &A3 - Tells the modem to provide verbose connect strings--this is a
> > anachronism to the old days of BBS's and whatnot, but I still use it because it's a hard habit for me to shake.
> > &K3 - Enables v.42bis compression, but disables MNP5 compression.
> > S15=2 - Disables retrains.
> > S11=38 - Sets intervals of 38ms between each DTMF tone the modem dials. Most modems can't handle past 50ms, but the Courier allows me to push my local phone company to their speed dialing limit. Matter of fact, the
Courier is the only modem I've ever used that can handle faster than 50ms breaks. If anybody tells you they set theirs to 0ms, the modem is really only doing to 50ms.
> > S69=12 - Tells my modem to only light the HS (high speed) light when connecting faster than 33,600bps.
> >
> > Have fun!

[FlyingPenguin]

Oh man, yeah, if you didn't have the right init strings, you were toast. That was part of the secret sauce - kind of like RAM timing is today for performance RAM.

[normalicy]

Yeah, I remember one of the first things I did with a new build was to set the init string.

[wvjohn]

Lol, I remember when the online bulletin boards all used different protocols and you had to keep lists...