TELECOM Digest Mon, 9 Jan 2006 17:15:00 EST Volume 25 : Issue 12 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson History of Hayes Modem (The Great Idea Finder) Era of the BBS (Jason Scott) Two articles about when BBS' were a big thing, prior to (or actually, in the very earliest days of internet and newsgroups. When we used to communicate via Bulletin Board Systems and slow speed modems, generally the 1978-1995 time period. PAT] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: The Great Idea Finder Subject: History of Hayes Modem Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2006 20:56:30 -0600 Fascinating facts about the invention of the PC Modem by Dennis Hayes in 1977 From PC MODEM Modem, device that converts between analog and digital signals. Digital signals, which are used by computers, are made up of separate units, usually represented by a series of 1's and 0's. Analog signals vary continuously; an example of an analog signal is a sound wave. Modems are often used to enable computers to communicate with each other across telephone lines. A modem converts the digital signals of the sending computer to analog signals that can be transmitted through telephone lines. When the signal reaches its destination, another modem reconstructs the original digital signal, which is processed by the receiving computer. If both modems can transmit data to each other simultaneously, the modems are operating in full duplex mode; if only one modem can transmit at a time, the modems are operating in half duplex mode. To convert a digital signal to an analog one, the modem generates a carrier wave and modulates it according to the digital signal. The kind of modulation used depends on the application and the speed of operation for which the modem is designed. For example, many high-speed modems use a combination of amplitude modulation, where the amplitude of the carrier wave is changed to encode the digital information, and phase modulation, where the phase of the carrier wave is changed to encode the digital information. The process of receiving the analog signal and converting it back to a digital signal is called demodulation. The word "modem" is a contraction of its two basic functions: modulation and demodulation. 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. He sold the first Hayes modem products to computer hobbyists in April of 1977 and founded D.C. Hayes Associates, Inc., the company known today as Hayes Corp., in January of 1978. Hayes quality and innovation resulted in performance enhancements and cost reductions that led the industry in the conversion from leased line modems to intelligent dial modems -- the PC Modem. Hayes-Compatible, in computer science, an adjective used to describe a modem that responds to the same set of commands as a modem manufactured by Hayes Microcomputer Products, originators of the de facto standard for microcomputer modems. TO LEARN MORE: RELATED INFORMATION: Dennis C Hayes, Inventor Profile from The Great Idea Finder History of Computing from The Great Idea Finder ON THE WEB: Zoom Telephonics, Inc. This company acquired most of the modem assets of Hayes Corporation. (URL http:// www.zoom.com/news.shtml ) The Rise and Fall of the Modem King Dennis C. Hayes begins selling personal computer modem products to computer hobbyists. Initially, the modems are boards for the S-100 bus, and later for the Apple II. International Herald Tribune. Article by Victoria Shannon. (URL http:// timeline.textfiles.com/1977/ ) Hayes Compatible There was a time when Hayes compatible meant something. (URL http:// www.pcwebopaedia.com/TERM/H/Hayes_compatible.html ) Modem Standards The organization that now sets modem standards is the International Telecommunication Union. (URL: http://www.itu.int/home/index.html ) Computer History Timeline of computer history from BC to the present. Presented by Computer Hope, free help for computer users.History for 1960 - 1980 (URL http://www.computerhope.com/history/196080.htm ) Buzz Words A Glossary of Modem Terms (URL http://www.v90.com/glossary.htm ) Modems (This site has closed.) The latest, and last, analog modem standard is called v.90, and everything you ever wanted to know about modems. (URL http://www.modemshop.com/mdic210.txt ) Modem pioneer struggles for survival (Article removed.) The company is offering a new product -- a limited-edition, 56K 20th anniversary modem, signed by Dennis Hayess. Article from USA TODAY, by The Associated Press. (URL http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/ctd913.htm ) HOW IT WORKS: How Modems Work From the popular How Stuff Works Web site by Marshall Brain. Lots of COOKIES and POP-UP ADS at this site. DID YOU KNOW?: a.. 1978 -- Dennis C. Hayes and partner Dale Heatherington, working on Hayes' dining room table, develop first personal-computer modem and formed a company. b.. 1985 -- Hayes annual sales hit $120 million as popularity of home computers grows. Reference Sources in BOLD Type This page revised March, 2005. Copyright 1997 - 2006 The Great Idea Finder. All rights resereved. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. And, discuss this and other topics in our forum at http://telecom-digest.org/forum (or) http://telecom-digest.org/chat/index.html *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This Internet discussion group is making it available without profit to group members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of literary, educational, political, and economic issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, in this instance, Great Idea Finder. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Jason Scott Subject: Era of the BBS Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2006 20:57:30 -0600 The TEXTFILES.COM Historical BBS List: An introduction by Jason Scott As the age of the Dial-Up BBS draws to a close, I thought it necessary to ensure a way to keep some understanding of the role of BBSes in the growth of the Internet. More importantly, I thought it might be fun to collect the phone numbers of every known dial-up BBS and find a way to enshrine them in one easy-to-browse list. This way, people could look back at the area codes and exchanges of their youth and remember all these electronic places, these meeting houses and hangouts that formed a part of so many people's youth. A Very Short History The first modem for microcomputers was invented by Dennis Hayes in 1977. This device (short for MOdulator-DEModulator) allowed two computers to connect to each other over the existing telephone network. Previously, dedicated phone lines were used between permanent computer installations. He soon founded D. C. Hayes Associates, later Hayes Corporation, which was a leader in PC Modems for most of the 1980's. While the idea of being able to use the existing phone network for computer communication was still new (and gaining interest by hobbyists and others to transfer information) it was two people, Ward Christensen and Randy Suess, who created the first "Bulletin Board System" and put it online in February, 1978. The concept behind "Ward and Randy's CBBS" was to provide a way for others to dial into their computer, and leave messages for other users. They described it as a natural extension of an actual physical Bulletin Board they were using for their local computer club. They published an article in Byte Magazine describing their software, and the era of the Dial-Up BBS had begun. There are many histories of the BBS and I hope to write a comprehensive one myself at some point in the future, but a number of links are provided below for you to research by yourself. The BBS List As more and more people purchased modems to go with their home computers and wanted to sign up with all these "BBSes" they'd been hearing about, a fundamental problem presented itself: How to find out what the numbers of the BBSes were. Since anyone could set up a BBS (if they had an extra phone line or were willing to give up human calls) the issue was more one of publicity than opportunity. Word-of- mouth was effective, with BBS numbers showing up at computer club meetings and passed around schools. Some people advertised on other BBSes, so that if you got one phone number to a BBS, you would soon know others. Eventually, however, some folks took it upon themselves to maintain BBS Lists, where they would keep track of all the BBSes of a given subject matter or type, or even an area code, and others would let them know if they had put up a new BBS. Over time, these BBS lists could be found everywhere, and gave people an easy way to know what numbers to call to log on. This was the age of the BBS List; you would download the month's list to see what new places there were to call. If a site didn't get on enough BBSes, they wouldn't get enough calls, and would eventually close down. Of course, the administrators of these lists had policies of who they would let on, focusing on one kind of computer hardware, or location, or what the subject matter of the BBS was. Some also refused to list "underground" BBSes, making them even more "underground" than they might have been. An Idea Is Hatched While doing work on textfiles.com, I started to think about the many thousands of BBSes that had come and gone, and the effect they'd had on myself and many others. I remembered the days when I would go up and down BBS lists calling every last board seeing what was new or what was being offered, ignoring what the board called itself or what others claimed it did or didn't have, wanting to see for myself. I remember running into boards with brilliance behind the wheel and BBSes that had been left to die and were inhabited by a bunch of squatters and power players. Many of these places are lost in my memory, but seeing their names or numbers brings it all back. I figured that since TEXTFILES.COM had all these BBS Lists from that period of time, I might consider compiling a list. Several bourne and Perl scripts later, the list is now up into the many thousands (although always in need of pruning and verification) and the project is well underway. The way I see this project is as a lark, and a fun thing to do in my spare time. I will work to always make my efforts reproducible, and the data files that are generated by my scripts will hopefully come of use to people in other projects, related or not. I would hope that some people will browse these lists and really enjoy looking back at their favorite area codes, and remember that part of their lives. So welcome to the world's largest BBS list. I hope you enjoy browsing it as much as I did compiling it. Bibliography Information was taken from the following sources: Ideafinder: The PC Modem http://www.jps.net/foxnhare/cbbs.html (link dead) Interview with Ward Christensen and Randy Seuss [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: These two articles, on Dennis Hayes and the 'Era of BBS-ing' are going to go in my newly revised web site http://history-internet.org among the links for your review. Regards very old BBS systems, I ran a couple of them during the early 1980's: I had Lakeshore Modem Magazine, a social issues BBS in Rogers Park in Chicago, from 1981-85. I was also the volunteer 'Sysop' (or System Operator) for the Chicago Public Library BBS in 1981-82 and I worked with Jerry Ablan, a Chicago southwest side (Beverly) resident with a discussion forum on his 'THINK! BBS' in 1982-83. The BBS was named after the old IBM-slogan in those years, which was 'Think!', and I began mousing around a lot on Usenet at more or less the same time. My computer in those days was an Apple ][+, as was the one used at the Library. Jerry Ablan had a Tandy Model 4 for his thing. Also, in the middle 1980's I worked with a guy in Oak Park, Illinois who was maintaining a FIDO node on a Tandy 4. My first experience with (what are called 'newsgroups' on Usenet), or 'echogroups' on FIDO came on his node. 'Nodes' were the numerical assignments given to everyone who maintained a FIDO system. I have thought some about expanding this Digest as it stands today, through a 'gateway' to FIDO. PAT] ------------------------------