Doppler?

[Maestro]

Travelling down memory lane I was wondering just now what was the name of the device I used, before the advent of Windows, the computer modem and the world-wide web, to use my computer to access bulletin boards. The way I remember it, I dialled a number on my phone and then placed the receiver on this device which I believe had the word "doppler" in its name. Acoustic doppler?

I started looking for a photo of this device on the Internet but cannot find any.

[Spoonman]

Acoustic Coupler.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic_coupler

[Somtamnication]

I ran a bbs back then. Tons of fun, great monthly meetings, great arguments. First it was Opus, then Maximus, then Wildcat. Those were the days.

Was a tester for US Robotics and got sysop discounts. Fun fun fun.

[Maestro]

Acoustic Coupler.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic_coupler

Thank you, Spoonman. Coupler, not Doppler, that's why I couldn't find the darn thing.Those were the days, but I appreciate the progress that has been made since then.

[Naam]

Acoustic Coupler.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic_coupler

Thank you, Spoonman. Coupler, not Doppler, that's why I couldn't find the darn thing.Those were the days, but I appreciate the progress that has been made since then.

i still rember the phantastic speed of 300 Baud and the download time of 20 minutes for a tiny DOS program

[Chicog]

Doppler is the name of an effect...

[RKASA]

"Travelling down memory lane"

Spend 1000's of hours in a room full of this sound.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:RTTY.ogg

Would patch the grabbed parts of messages together by splicing pref tapes collected from the teletype and then re print the messages out by running the tape. No copy mach had to run it several times to make copies for the different departments and the file.

Late at nite we could use the ratty to chat with other units and we had a direct connection to the news wires and got the raw feeds sent around the world. At the time we were the only ones really connected.

[BruceSmith]

Doppler is the name of an effect...

Doppler effect

• The Doppler effect, named after the Austrian physicist Christian Doppler, who proposed it in 1842 in Prague, is the change in frequency of a wave for an observer moving relative to its source. Wikipedia

  I wonder if he also kept ladies in his basement - in Austria?

[joncl]

"Travelling down memory lane"

Spend 1000's of hours in a room full of this sound.

Late at nite we could use the ratty to chat with other units and we had a direct connection to the news wires and got the raw feeds sent around the world. At the time we were the only ones really connected.

Ah the days of the old 5480 teletype machines (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleprinter) hooked into an apple 2 or atari - all at the blazing speed of 50 baud .. The old DRNK news feed in rtty was always a good test for any new systems. Now in one chip and the overall size reduced by over 1,000 + % Oh how tech moves on ..

Edited November 19, 2013 by joncl

[Chicog]

We used to have to light fires and send signals with a blanket. But then again we were Paw.

rat-a-tat-*ching*

[RKASA]

We used to have to light fires and send signals with a blanket. But then again we were Paw.

rat-a-tat-*ching*

You had fire? We needed the blanket to stay warm, we was way Paw.

[grin]

They were still called modems. They were the original modems. They just used an acoustic coupler interface.

In the beginning these modems were huge. When the first Cat modem came out it was a big hit for its small size.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novation_CAT

Then of course Hayes came out with their cheaper modems and the rest is history.

If two modems look alike would they be called doppler gangers?

Grin

[h90]

Doppler is the name of an effect...

And the name of a 2 Liter wine bottle.

My theory is that it is called Doppler effect because it is similar to what you experience after drinking 1 Doppler wine.

Or the man who discovered the Doppler effect also invented the 2 liter wine bottle and both are named Doppler to honor him?

[PoetDrunkInTheBoat]

The first time I used one of these devices, I was in Philly at one of the universities there. All it is is a "socket" that you connect your phone receiver to, and which uses the speaker and microphone in the receiver to transmit the signal. It is not a doppler doodad, but more of a transducer.

I used mine for about a year, because I had a teletype machine in my home which would communicate with the mainframe computer in the city.

I was using an interactive language and a keyboard, unlike the batch processing we also used with cards.

I do not know the speed we had then, but I guess it was around 1200 bps or something, enough to type alphanumeric data and have it received by the computer on the other end.

It was quite expensive for that rig. And the year was 1973 or 4.

Much has changed.

But these transducers are still here, in another form.

It was fun to pick up the receiver from the device half way through and listen to the screams of the machine.

Sounded just like aliens,

And maybe it was.

Sorry I do not have any photos of that machine for you.

I used it to write a program for airline company reservations.

Mostly for fun.

[Chicog]

We were the first in the Gulf to have dial up internet, jesus it was slow. Then again, that's when drivers were 150kb.