Should I replace my 56k modem with a 28.8K Modem?

Re:Should I replace my 56k modem with a 28.8K Modem? by chrsig on Sunday November 19, 2023 @11:49AM (#38334487)

freeing cpu/ram generally wasn't the motivator to get a hardware modem. winmodems required drivers that generally were only available for windows ("win"modem)

at a consumer level, the only people that ever knew or cared were people trying to run linux or a bsd. h/w modems operated over a serial port, and didn't require any special kernel support.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Should I replace my 56k modem with a 28.8K Modem? by abirch on Sunday November 19, 2023 @04:19PM (#38338181)

That's how I learned about the kernel and modules. That and getting a CD ROM to work.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Should I replace my 56k modem with a 28.8K Modem? by JohnBooty on Monday November 20, 2023 @12:45AM (#38342929)

    at a consumer level, the only people that ever 
    knew or cared were people trying to run linux 
    or a bsd

Lots of tech support stories in the HN replies here, and the linked Anandtech discussion, that contradict that.

Yeah, winmodems were "good enough" for most. But tended to perform worse with noisy phone lines. Which were really common. Which is what the linked article talks about.

Also remember that DOS online gaming was a thing for a few years. If you played Quake online in the early days, you were generally not doing it through Windows.

Also I think Warcraft and all them were dos. Battle net? Kali? I dunno, that was my friend's department.

[ Parent | on HN ]