Qmodem was my favorite comm program during the BBS days, and it still is today when working with vintage computers. It was just nice to use. Its scripting language was the first I used and I find myself wishing there was a Linux comm program with scripting that worked that well. Long distance calls were expensive so I used a Qmodem script to call BBSs each morning to download my email before school.
Just the last several months I've been using Qmodem scripting to make thousands of modem calls over VoIP to test downloads to see which models and ATAs work best.
After I jumped back into the vintage BBS world I've been keeping an eye out for anything Qmodem. I recently just picked up a Qmodem manual on ebay that I wanted to scan and archive, because it's pretty rare to see.
Not too long ago I saw where John had posted to a FB group he was working on a new DOS version of Qmodem, my first interaction with him. I was excited to see it be worked on again and hoped to see the new version. Sad to see him go.
> Just the last several months I've been using Qmodem scripting to make thousands of modem calls over VoIP to test downloads to see which models and ATAs work best.
This is great. That someone is still using this software meaningfully to this day.-
Do you plan on writing about your dip back into vintage BBSs? I have a lot of memories from my youth oriented around BBSs, a world and network of communities I wasn’t really old enough to understand. I’d like to revisit that time with my adult brain…
These were pretty decent, not too terrible, and could be set up to dial normal ISPs. They filled a niche with older customers and/those who had zero computer experience but wanted to check email and browse web pages back in the 90s. They didn't last long enough to bridge the gap to the tablet era, so I'm guessing a lot of people finally had to learn a computer.
I do remember playing some MIDI files on it and realizing how good it sounded compared to my basic SoundBlaster 16, which made me go out and get a SB AWE32.
They could also be reconfigured, via a specially crafted email, if I recall correctly, to call 911. A huge proportion of these boxes were in a handful of zip codes in Florida, and once the exploit started spreading, a few PSAPs got hosed until a fix could be developed
I'm surprised there's no mention of QBasic that shipped with MS-DOS >= 5.0. This was built on top of EDIT.COM, and while it only ran a BASIC interpreter instead of compiling an executable like full-blown QuickBasic.
IIRC it had a rather extensive help lookup system for functions, data types, reference tables, error codes, and whatnot. You could step through your program, set debug points, all without exiting to DOS. It was my first ever exposure to an IDE, I thought it was pretty nice for what it was.
I loved QBasic. That integrated help system also came with extensive sample code for each function, including some full programs. Copying and modifying those was a huge boost to learning how to program.
Traffic to vs through a router; both UDP and ICMP probes to a given hop will both go to the control plane which can be rate limited or handled by a general purpose CPU.
Probes to hops beyond will virtually always go through the fast data plane.
Usually this meant the new neighborhood was put behind a subscriber loop carrier (SLC) which added an extra analog/digital conversion. Voice calls were getting digitized locally, sent across a T1 (only 4 wires needed, instead of 96-192), and back to analog to the normal frame at the CO. The effect of this was the telltale sign of carrier speeds only hitting 26,400 bps.
To nitpick, the 53.3k limit only affected US Robotics' pre-V.90 standard called X2, due to how much power they would require, which violated FCC rules. K56Flex (the competing 56k protocol), and later the ratified V.90 standard didn't have this problem and you could achieve carrier speeds of 56,000 bps.
What's crazy is how badly I was waiting to upgrade from X2 to K56Flex just to get the 3kbps, which was like a life-altering speed difference back then!
Ahh the 56K modem wars - each group swore either by USR or K56Flex and were incompatible with each other until V90 standard came along - some modems could be firmware upgraded (USR) others not that used discrete components.
There's still a decent community of people running them either for nostalgia and/or bringing them into the Internet area. Some are telnet/ssh only, some have actual dial-up modems too.
I set up Wildcat! 4 (a DOS based BBS software) earlier this year and have had a blast with reliving the past. It was interesting to figure out how true to period vintage to run it vs letting some newness leak in, with 30 years of hardware and connectivity options to select from.
I wound up doing both dial-up and telnet access, and just last week got an UUCP gateway setup so it can dial out to a Raspberry Pi and send/receive internet email.
In the mid oughts I was doing point of sale gift card processing, and most was still dial up. Had to write something like socat for incoming connections, then later port to C. I seriously considered building for DOS with a more modern compiler. But it wouldn't have been justified and couldn't bring myself to seriously try it.
It's interesting how many tools there are now to make it easier.
Just the last several months I've been using Qmodem scripting to make thousands of modem calls over VoIP to test downloads to see which models and ATAs work best.
After I jumped back into the vintage BBS world I've been keeping an eye out for anything Qmodem. I recently just picked up a Qmodem manual on ebay that I wanted to scan and archive, because it's pretty rare to see.
Not too long ago I saw where John had posted to a FB group he was working on a new DOS version of Qmodem, my first interaction with him. I was excited to see it be worked on again and hoped to see the new version. Sad to see him go.