I had one of those phone cradles! It transmitted text at a blistering 350 baud, which meant you could watch the characters appear one by one on the screen. No images of course. Don't know about England, but here in the US it was metered the same as any phone call. If you dialed a number in your own area code the call was free, but anything outside of it was charged long distance rates. So unless you were filthy rich, talking to someone at a distance was out. While it wasn't the Internet, the local scene was a precursor of the Net. Most users were high school kids chatting, but it had the first attempt at a porn site, an S&M chat room. But even that wasn't very interesting, and the cradle ended up gathering dust.
I never used one but saw them. I do remember using BBSs back when though. Still dial up and mostly chat rooms, file transfers with a 1200bps or 2400bps modem. Then the 9600bps modems came out but the cost (~$900) was way beyond what I could afford. Still faced long distance charges for anything but local. There was a BBS back east where I would d/l satellite keps. I would wait until late at night. Cheaper rates and less chance of someone picking up the phone and breaking the connection.
I had one of those phone cradles! It transmitted text at a blistering 350 baud, which meant you could watch the characters appear one by one on the screen. No images of course. Don't know about England, but here in the US it was metered the same as any phone call. If you dialed a number in your own area code the call was free, but anything outside of it was charged long distance rates. So unless you were filthy rich, talking to someone at a distance was out. While it wasn't the Internet, the local scene was a precursor of the Net. Most users were high school kids chatting, but it had the first attempt at a porn site, an S&M chat room. But even that wasn't very interesting, and the cradle ended up gathering dust.
ReplyDeleteI never used one but saw them. I do remember using BBSs back when though. Still dial up and mostly chat rooms, file transfers with a 1200bps or 2400bps modem. Then the 9600bps modems came out but the cost (~$900) was way beyond what I could afford.
ReplyDeleteStill faced long distance charges for anything but local. There was a BBS back east where I would d/l satellite keps. I would wait until late at night. Cheaper rates and less chance of someone picking up the phone and breaking the connection.
Now my internet is 950Mbps