Tedium Highlight in Modems: The internet’s globalization growing pains. 

Follow on Twitter Follow on Facebook
Tag results: Modems

What Was ISDN?

For decades, the telephone industry supported a new technology designed to make copper lines more useful to the average consumer. It’s great—if you’re a voice actor.

The Modem Tax

How a real-life attempt to charge online services for using the phone line became an infamous internet legend. The “modem tax” was a chain-mail boogeyman.

The Squeal of Data

The through line between the telegraph and the computer is more direct than you might realize. Its influence can be seen in common technologies, like the modem.

The Hayes Code

The obscure command set that gradually helped us move past acoustic couplers and brought dial-up modems into the mainstream. For a while, at least.

Free As In Internet

In the '80s, a defining online phenomenon—being able to use the internet for free—came from (of all places) Cleveland. Here’s the story of the Free-Net.

The Original Internet Bottleneck

Many early ISPs—particularly AOL—weren’t ready to offer unlimited internet access in the mid-’90s. That is, until a surprising disruptor appeared: AT&T.

The Wires Barely Reach

It took a while for the internet to turn into a major global force, but it wasn't for lack of trying. (Peter Gabriel deserves at least some of the credit.)

Nothing But Net (And Ads)

The rise of the ad-sponsored dial-up ISP offers some useful lessons on promising too much in the age of MoviePass. Good luck getting rid of that ad.

Modem Madness

Who said they just had to make games? From answering machines to lottery prototypes, Sega and Nintendo tried weird things with modems in the early ’90s.

Going Soft

Remembering that time the computer industry bought into soft modems, which shoved the work of managing a dial-up modem onto overworked CPUs.
Tedium logo
Tedium is a labor of love and appreciation.

Is it weird to say we love the internet? Because at Tedium, we love the internet—as a source of never-ending research, a vessel for new ideas, and a great historical deep dive. Since 2015, we’ve been throwing two newsletters a week into inboxes the world over, and count more than 12,000 regular readers. And we’d like to keep it going a while longer, so help by sponsoring an issue or supporting us on Patreon. But please: No backlink requests.

What is Tedium? | Support us on Patreon | Share your ideas! | Privacy Policy | Advertise With Us | RSS feed | Ernie on Mastodon

Disclosure: From time to time, we may use affiliate links in our content—but only when it makes sense. Promise.

P.S.: If you email me asking about doing a guest post or posting a backlink, you forfeit ownership of your site to me.

Proudly built on Craft CMS using the Bulma framework.

Copyright © 2015-2023 Tedium LLC. All rights reserved. Please, try the fish.