[vcf-midatlantic] Hayes 300bps SmartModem for museum exhbit?
Herb Johnson
hjohnson at retrotechnology.info
Sun Feb 2 14:23:40 EST 2020
> Was it the Hayes (internal S100) listed below? Seuss himself just
> mentions a "Hayes 300 baud modem card" at:
> https://www.chinet.com/html/cbbs.html
I know plenty about S-100. I'm pleased to see an opportunity to show in
the 21st century that S-100 was (again) a trailblazer in personal computing.
The discussion at the linked Web page seems clear to me, that the card
referenced was a S-100 product. The people in discussion state that
testing was "very early in Feb" of 1978. One can research to see what
Hayes products were available on that date. But one Hayes S-100 card I
saw today says on the card "1977-1978"
The linked discussion is from Randy Suess and - not mentioned here -
Ward Christensen. Ward developed a number of early - I'd call legendary
- programs which were distributed later by CPMUG and SIG/M in their
diskette libraries. Don't forget him.
http://www.s100computers.com/Hardware%20Folder/DC%20Hayes/103/103%20Modem.htm
shows a Hayes 80-103A modem card and discusses some of its history. The
site also shows a Hayes Micromodem-100 and claims it was "second".
Another S-100 modem brand was PMMI; the MM-103 is also shown at
s100computers.com. Note John Monahan mentioned the Hayes card needed a
PMMI coupler. There were probably other brands of S-100 card modems.
These cards for various reasons, did not include a "coupler", the device
that physically connected to the telephone. That's for historic reasons;
look it up.
There were several key technologies needed to produce a modem; and a
little bit of regulated commerce was involved. They all came together at
the time to enable such a product to arise. Of course: the
microprocessor computer with mass storage created a need. Yes, there
were remote terminals in use and that was a market, but most terminals
were wired in or used leased lines. There's other considerations I'm not
putting into this simple post; go research late-1970's computing. I was
a BSEE and minicomputer system manager at the time, I experienced some
of this stuff, and so I'm simply commenting from memory.
I find that modern people looking back, think that modems were "natural"
even obvious. No, they weren't, they occurred at a point in time for
historic reasons. I've suggested a few. It's entirely up to the
exhibitors to decide, whether or not to portray that background in their
exhibit.
regards
Herb Johnson
--
Herbert R. Johnson, New Jersey in the USA
http://www.retrotechnology.com OR .net
preserve, recover, restore 1970's computing
email: hjohnson AT retrotechnology DOT com
or try later herbjohnson AT retrotechnology DOT info
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