Multilink PPP worked well on an era-appropriate Windows XP PC, after progress using an earlier Windows ME box stalled.
  • Joe@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    10 months

    This was similar to a trick that a few smaller (less serious) hobby-ISPs did back in the days of 14.4k/28.8k modems to take advantage of the “reasonably priced” business plans for ISDN. They’d register multiple businesses at a single address to qualify for the plans, then balance new egress connections across the pool using squid and other magic. Fun times…

  • Dionysus@leminal.spaceEnglish
    10 months

    My first modem was an AT&T 300 baud acoustic coupler. My last was a USRobotics 56k for the BBS I ran till the early 2000s.

    I later switched to DSL for my Internet, but the reason we never did this sort of thing was the ISDN was just easier to get bandwidth and the tech existed to do what you needed with a few of them.

    12x POTS lines, or 6 full duplex ISDNs.

    My 56k never actually achieved that, most of the time it was 33.6 or 28.8.

    This is neat, and fun to see them still being tinkered with.

    • deltapi@lemmy.worldEnglish
      10 months

      Was your USR a courier or sportster? In my experience the couriers had better success connecting and operating at 48000+bps

    • BeBopALouie@lemmy.caEnglish
      10 months

      My last modems (cannot remember my 1st modem) were also US Robotics. I ran 2 or 3 BBS’s and FidoNet, on Apple ][ and PC back in the day. Also an online dating system. They were fun times.

    • Yggstyle@lemmy.worldEnglish
      10 months

      Reeeee… BONG… Bong… ffffffftttttttttt… Bung…

      Fffffffffftttttttt…

  • okwhateverdude@lemmy.worldEnglish
    10 months

    I remember doing this with NetZero accounts. You could trivially hack out the ads, and dial in-twice (if you had two phone lines), and do the bonding. Free slightly less shitty internets. Very useful for Napster and LimeWire back in the day.

  • realitista@lemmus.orgEnglish
    10 months

    Glad to see the USR Courier was used here. A venerable workhorse.

  • Zen_Shinobi@lemmy.worldEnglish
    10 months

    I bet you could get slightly quicker speeds if they ran a pihole or something to block ads.

    This is kind of an interesting idea. I wonder if it’s feable to reuse all the old 56k modems?

    • cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      10 months

      Even 20 years ago you needed ad blocking to make sites load a bit faster on dial-up. Now you would need no script and an image blocker too.

  • Broken@lemmy.mlEnglish
    10 months

    If 12 modems simultaneously handshake and nobody is there to hear it, does it make a sound? You’re damn right it does and probably shattered glass too.

    • masterofn001@lemmy.caEnglish
      10 months

      On an even unrelateder note but tangentially semi-related to your comment, may I present:

      [the user] symphony for dot matrix printers

      https://vimeo.com/6868193

      (I actually have a t-shirt from this artist - saw them at mutek festival in Montreal in 2000something.

      • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        10 months

        Exquisite.

        I absolutely love everything and anything that can make music out of something that isn’t intended to make music.