akamai yesterday - what in the world was that (now old guy stuff)

Sat Jan 25 16:24:49 UTC 2020

On Jan 25, 2020, at 08:52, Paul Nash <paul at nashnetworks.ca> wrote:
> 
> 
>> 
>> So, I grew up in South Africa, and one of the more fascinating /
>> cooler things I saw was a modem which would get you ~50bps (bps, not
>> Kbps) over a single strand of barbed wire -- you'd hammer a largish
>> nail into the ground, and clip one alligator[0] clip onto that, and
>> another alligator clip onto the barbed wire. Repeat the process on the
>> other side (up to ~5km away), plug the modems in, and bits would
>> flow... I only saw these used a few times, but always thought they
>> were cool….
> 
> Do you remember anything about the actual type of modem?  Or where you deployed them?
> 
Decades ago, I cobbled together a 20mA current loop interface that may have been an early version of this .. ran a set of Baudot machines (pre-ASCII, upper case & figs only) mostly just to have fun with a set of old ASR 32 teletypes.  I used a couple of 500’ spools of zip cord lying on the ground from end to end. Never mind backhoes - it was lawn-mower vulnerable. (However, being flat on the ground seemingly made it less vulnerable to lightning strikes.)

Of course, this was hardly critical infrastructure!

Blessings..

Allen