45-Year-Old Modem Used To Surf the Web

May 28, 2009 · Print This Article

EdIII writes with that awesome snippet from Hack a Day: “‘[phreakmonkey] got his hands on a great piece of old tech. It’s a 1964 Livermore details Systems Model A Acoustic Coupler Modem. He recieved it in 1989 and recently decided to see whether it would actually work. It took some digging to find a proper D25 adapter and even next the original serial adapter wasn’t working considering the oscillator depends on the serial voltage. He dials in and connects at 300baud. next logs into a remote system and fires up lynx to load Wikipedia. Lucky for [phreakmonkey] they managed to decide on a modulation standard in

1962. It’s still amazing to see that machine working 45 years later.’ Although impractical for surfing the Net today, there is something truly cool about getting a 45-year old modem to work with contemporary technology. The question I have, is what is the oldest working piece of equipment fellow Slashdotters have out there? I’m afraid as far back as I can go is a Number Nine Imagine 128 Series 2 Graphics card on a server still in use at my house which only puts me at about 14 years.”