I have no doubt they're underfunded and it's not a good situation.

But, they have a PC with speakers right there, couldn't they use like a $10 fax / modem and have some loud sound play on incoming faxes? They need a visit from some volunteer geek wizard who's familiar with such arcane technology.

Also this because I hate Comcast:

"I say it as a loyal Comcast employee for almost a decade, if you have Comcast - get out now, you're just wasting your money. They're going to increase your bill 3-5% twice a year, it's part of the annual budgeting process even though our costs actually go down. The internet business (as in, high speed customers) is almost purely profit, and it's turned down on purpose like everyone here already knows. Comcast has DOCSIS 3 capabilities and the infrastructure to support it in most major areas (this means gigabit speeds, by the way) - it can be activated simply by pushing the proper bootfiles out to the modems. This can be evidenced anywhere they have competition, they can respond overnight."
http://np.reddit.com/r/television/comments/2arg1k/comcasts_customer_service_nightmare_is_painful_to/ciy33bx

Hilarious!
I remember 3 second lag and worse with dial up modems.

This is Avatar Dree on the left from our Eagle River modeming days
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyX_XdnmI2Y

I never heard of rand-net modem cartridge, nor the video capture cartridge, but did know about most of the other factoids. I was sad that they never released Mega Drive in the US, but with only 6 titles I don't miss it.

It's crazy to think smartphones have way more graphics power and at least 60x as much ram. But what iOS or Android game comes close to Mario 64, DK64, Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, or Conker's Bad Fur Day ?

Lol, I remember studying the theoretical maximum bandwidth of a telephone modem at university. I can barely remember the maths/physics of it, but I remember the result which, interestingly, turns out to be less than 56k!

Christ, I feel old now.

Ditto. I was a teen(ager) back then! I got it from a local BBS, but couldn’t play it. My next door neighbor could on his 386 DX machine, but he had to study for finals so he only played a few levels. Haha. Years later, I made two DOOM 2 mod(ification)s: http://zimage.com/~ant/antfarm/files/doom2/j2doom/j2doom.html … I still have my external USR Sportster 33.6 dial-up modem. I think I played DOOM at 9600 speeds with my next door neighbor (we both had 14.4k modems! ).

Does anyone remember what time DOOM 1 shareware was released to the public? I couldn't find that answer.

The handshake includes the baud rate of the modem being called (well both really, but it starts on the one being called). I know the sound changed depending on which modem I used (I don't recall if it changed much from which BBS I called, as it was too long ago to remember that much detail).

The initial sequence is this (as best as I understand it):

1) The calling modem waits for an answer, the called modem (Answer) will send a carrier telling the calling modem it is ready and the calling modem sends a carrier back. Note, sometimes the Answer may send a few just in case the Caller doesn't understand the first one for some reason. In theory that should prevent a Caller from sending signals to voice line, in practice the Caller gets impatient and tries to start the call itself...

2) The Answer will send all the rates it knows. The Caller will respond in kind. They agree which rate to use, and line quality might make for even odder rates...

Here's a link to describe it, look at Once again: Making a connection, http://www.myhome.org/pg/modem.htm

Since when was the handshake ever affected by the modems baudrate? That would have made it impossible for different modems to connect to each other.

I believe this is a 56k modem, because of the ramp up at 22 secs.

Livermore Data Systems Model A acoustic coupler was my first "Modem" Thats before the Hayes command set.

Your video, Dial Up Modem Handshake Sound - Spectrogram, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

2400 or 2600 baud modems were the ones I used back in the BBS days.
Scariest part is when someone picked up the phone "hello?"

lets play some LORD

I know it's not 26400, 28800, and 31200 since my dial-up modems don't sound like those due to old crappy phone systems and areas. Maybe 53K?