I worked for BT in the UK. The first Modems I dealt with back in 1969 had a maximum speed of 200 bits per second and was the size of a small microwave.
Back in the day, I had strong feelings about BBS software. haha It seemed like Renegade was used by all the boards that wanted to look all "underground" and edgy. Wildcat! was bougie. PCBoard was like a BBS in a button-up shirt and a starched collar. I was all about Osiris XLT. Not the most flexible, full-featured, or for that matter, stable. But it had the character I liked in a BBS package. ;-D
The best thing about the Courier was that it just.. existed. Drivers? Software? RS232 and AT command set, bud. That's all you need. I had at one point four modems on one machine playing with teaming, and the courier and the sportster were the only ones that didn't cause problems.
I use to use these back in the day. They were the best as they are Hardware modems with all the heavy lifting done by the internal chipsets rather than the PC CPU. I used to look after many sites world wide and we used "Netgear RM356" remote access 56k dial-in routers. They were absolute genius. Connect to a phone line and patch to a network, and you can dial into that network from anywhere in the world. They had a local internal user access list which you had to configure in each unit.
I've pulled so many of these, new in box, from corporate data rooms where AT&T provided one for out of band management of their equipment, but were never hooked up. Thanks AT&T...
After your videos on the 90s ISP series I knew I had to get all this stuff just to get my mom's USR V.90 Message back up and running! I would have loved to be around during that awesome era. BTW, I'm also getting a USR Courier :)
OMG. I worked on these back in the days... I am surprised you still have a POTS line to use this 😅 The folks that designed the chips in these are all retired!
Back when I ran a BBS, another sysop said "that Courier will connect to a tree and hold the connection, if it has to" and he was only slightly exaggerating. I didn't own one at the time but I own one now. Wish I had it 25 years ago.
I still have a couple in a box somewhere that I'd previously used for OOB management. Those things could get a stable connection over 2 tin-cans and a piece of wet string.
Ferrite beads filter out high frequency interference such as might be picked up when the cable acts as an antenna (or transmitter) on the phone line loop at the ferrite..
Why is watching some guy spend half an hour dialing a Y2K modem *so* fascinating? Why?? Lock me away now.... with a PC and phone line a Courier Biz modem. 🙂
I had 4 of those on my bbs.. had zoom 9600's prior. The main problem with them was you could never get 56 on naked phone lines. You needed a different service. they were limited to ~48k
Thank you for the USR everything review. I have the USR 58k v92 modem like that. But, not v. everything. Tons of people had those External Sporster modems. I hated USR. One reason if the ISP was using USR modem rack (from my understanding USR was almost giving away modem racks.). You had to either use a USR modem or find one that was good enough. Oh and I tried a internal hays modem and had issues with higher speeds. The next reason was standards. k56flex from Rockwell was used as almost everything. Except USR who used X2. (I hope I remember this right.) So instead of giving in they went and pushed for a standard. Thus, V.90 was born. Years later I found out about V.92 but I was already depending on what year DSL or Cable.Now, I do have to give credit on the V. Everything. Between modules, and firmware upgrades after the initial purchase price. You saved good. I can't remember but, you had some strange non-standardized speeds. 110, 300, 600 (not really used or skipped. I can't remember.) 9600, 14.4 28.8 33.6 (I swear something in this spot then 56k Though maxed at 53k? Anyway please add or correct any mistakes. On final note. The place I worked at did the homework and it was funny replacing out brand new modems with high quality modems that we know worked with the local ISP. We contacted them to get a list (or make a list.). Like now when you get a DSL or Cable modem list. Oh and plug in play when you rebooted the machine and the software could not find the modem.
600 baud was never a thing. It went from 300 to 1200, then 2400. If you had 2400 in the BBS days you were cruising, "styling and profiling" as it was called, and often received preferential treatment by BBS's (even specific dedicated 2400-only phone numbers). 9600 I only ever saw internally within a network, that was the speed a terminal interacted with multiuser minicomputers like the Alpha Microsystems AM100 & AM1000 or mainframes such as a VAX. DSL pretty much bypassed that speed for dialup. The standard step you were looking for after 33.6 was 48k. Actual speeds could vary. Using a 56k modem on a DSL dialup, I saw reported transfer rates like 43,000 and 45,333 baud. Best performance I was ever able to squeeze out of that hardware/provider combination was 53,333 baud (middle-class/bougie neighborhood of urban area, within 1 mi. of telco switching center)
@@xheralt I had a 2400 baud modem towards the end of the BBS era. I also had a 14.4, 28.8 and finally a 56k. This is going to drive me up the wall though. I decided to check modem speed. I know they have a list of certified stuff. I thought of a speed of say 19.2 or something like that. Mostly say USR / firmware upgrades. That was not a standard. Currently I'm deep diving into T1 circuit with things like ISDN, PRI, BRI, etc. I like to play with legacy phone systems and thus, having a small T1 circuit with pri channels. Works great between them and a Cisco router.
For the carrier dropping right after connecting, is the other terminal program doing something with DTR? I remember from back in the day lowering DTR would disconnect the call (as opposed to. +++ then ATH0 maybe?) I think you can configure it with an S register.
When I was in HS I decided I wanted to be an engineer and work for US Robotics. Well, I became an engineer, but USR was gone by the time I graduated. Just as well... I got a better job.
I still have one, with the original power supply and manual, but not the box. I bought it when I was in college. I obviously haven't used it in many decades, but I've no desire to get rid of it.
"Even in the year 2000, ads and spyware were already prevalent on the internet". Yes, although some things were different. Banner were on web pages very early, and for a while were very profitable. Tracking advertising was not considered a major problem yet (and arguably it's never been as big of a problem as people imagine it to be). The first major ad problem was pop-ups ads. Early browsers had more faith in the pages they were communicating with, and HTML has functions that can be very annoying, like the popup. Web advertisers began inserting popups into banners which would flood the user with ads from an unsuspecting page. Technically there are still parts of this problem that exist, but we expect the browser to usually protect us on a legit site. *** The second problem was malware. One major difference between security software now and in the early 2000s in the differentiation between "adware" or "malware" or "spyware" and "viruses". In the early-late 2000's I worked in anti-virus software at a large Redmond, WA based software company you've heard of. Starting with software like "Bonzi Buddy", there had been a rise in programs that made your computer worse or shared information, but were legal and were not "viruses". The user had intentionally installed the software. It was in our interest to get rid of these programs, but the higher-ups felt that it was a difficult legal situation. Since the software was legal and the user had intentionally installed it, making it unable to run was seen (at the time) to open the company up to lawsuits. In fact, even though the "spyware" term was originally more popular, the spying problem wasn't as big as the ad problem. Software that spied was likely illegal. It was not as easily distributed through legitimate sources, and the makers were taking a larger risk. Malware was distributed in more "legit" places and was seen as a less risky business model. For this reason, we stopped saying "spyware" and started saying "malware". We had to get a tool to our users despite the legal issues, so we created "Defender". Defender specifically only handled Malware, and the user had to make the choice to remove an item. Mean while, the two major AV efforts at the company only fought what was considered a "viruses", although it would fight "trojans". Defender did not stop viruses, but Defender was a free download for our widely-used operating system, while virus protection was a paid product. After I left, the idea of Malware and Viruses being separate was dropped and the company became far less concerned about blocking malware, at least partly because the lines were less blurred. Defender handles AV and Malware as the same thing.
You may laugh.. but we're still using these for incoming faxes at a healthcare network. (These and the Multitech's) 99% of the traffic is digital now, but there's one group who just wont quit the modems.
j got this modem way back when, took a lot of begging and saving and getting As in classes before my parents would buy it for me. When I started, it was a 28.8K modem., It came with a free firmware upgrade for 33.6K. Later on it got the 56k x2 upgrade (when it was between x2 and k56flex), and finally an upgrade to v.92. Still have it. Didn't know they were still around until my old work upgraded to gigabit internet and the ISP put in a media converter and a phone line. The phone line plugged into a Courier that was connected to the console port of the media converter. These are features that aren't on my Courier. And what's with the massive number of typos on the document for Dialback Security?
I never thought that dialback security procedure would take up one minute. Shouldn't it switch to another number in shorter time frame, e.g. 30-40 seconds?
Holy frell, that user manual is so full of typos it makes the "manuals" of cheap AliExpress knock-off products you can buy for a buck or two look like the Merriam-Webster. Oof.
@@TheParallelPort i know the software upgrade went pretty far back but I'm not sure on specifics. I have one of these for a dial in node on a bbs I still run. Love em!
@@TheParallelPort Yep. Mine have a special daughterboard that I had to get from USR to give me the ability to do software upgrades. Real slick feature in the 1990s. I still have this modem!
I am torn on how to feel about this. O1H, that was a unique feature. Usually, when you needed a faster modem, you bought a faster modem. That's just how it was done. OTOH, there wasn't a lot that was technically different. It was all DSP. Why weren't modems ALL upgradeable after, like 14.4K? That said, you easily paid for two or three modems when you bought a Courier, so I guess they got theirs either way. Maybe if other manufacturers charged a nominal amount to buy the upgrade, and tied it to the serial number (because otherwise, of course it would be pirated), we could've all had nice things. My mind just rallies back and forth between "that is sooo cool" to "why wasn't this just a thing for everybody???"
I had a Sysop Courier modem back in the 90s when 16.8k HST was the new hot thing. Been recently playing with a pair of Couriers going through SPA122 MTA to a remote dialup bbs on the SFWEM AREDN network. Crazy but it works!
Yep, I remember getting mine via the Sysop deal years ago as a teenager. It was a dual standard 14.4k with a daughterboard upgrade to run 16.8K and later firmware upgraded to 56K. Thanks to that daughterboard it gave me the ability to do firmware upgrades to add more features and speed. This is actually my first firmware upgradable device in the 1990s. I still have the modem. 😁
@@Darkk6969 Nice... wish I still had my original sysop modem though I want to say my daughter board was only the 20mhz one so it couldn't do v.90 or v.92. anyway.. I hope yours is worth some real money in 20yrs! ;-)
I've been dreaming about this modem in my teen years (1997 - 2003). Never had it. It was insanely expensive in Russia for me and my family. I had Zoltrix 33.6K int. and later Acorp 56K Ext.Then came cable internet... U.S.Robotics Courier was a symbol of reliability and speed.
Same here! As a kid, my friend's father was a salesperson for HP and I remember seeing a USR Courier box in the back of his car. I was so jealous, but then it turned out it was for a customer and not my friend, which was even more disappointing as that meant neither of us got to experience it.
Started out with a 2400bps that came with the family 386, and finally convinced the folks to upgrade to a 28.8k Zoom. It was quite a while before I got my own Sportster 56k. Like you said: Couriers were unobtanium for mere mortals.
Two door games in try out when setting up a BBS for S&Gs are BRE and LoRD II. BRE can be annoying, since it picky about DOS. LoRD II has real time multiplayer. BRE was a pain to run outside of real DOS. LoRD needed SHARE.EXE and did multip
I ran Telegard back in the late 90s. You'll want to upgrade your install to to SP3 (tg309sp3.zip) and then to SP4 (tg309sp4.zip). This is the latest version of Telegard that was released and will remove the "this program is expired/out of date" messages. As for what to do going forward, you could always join up with Fidonet (yes, it's still around) and there are a few other message networks you can join as well, fsxNet probably being the most active. Let me know if you'd like any help getting setup on a message network and I can help you with the config of FastEcho/GEcho, ALLFIX & Binkd as well as who to contact for getting an application setup for Fidonet.
I used to run RemoteAccess 2.04 on 486 hardware. Then, wan the board on Windows 95 - didn’t make it to XP as BBSes were “dead” by then (Internet popularity)
This takes me back (almost 30 years!). I was a big fan of CNet Amiga, but I didn't have an Amiga, so I modded Renegade (and later Telegard) to look like CNet.
Ran a few single line BBSs in the 90s using RemoteAccess. Even met Andrew Milner, the developer, when the largest BBS in town, Motor City, flew him in from Australia for a meet and greet. Me and my buddy were the only two 14 year olds there! So much nostalgia for this time! Thanks for the trip
Fortunately there are many recent builds of Renegade that work very well. We just wanted to start off with something different than Renegade, Telegard is closely related and was another popular option back in the 90s. We'll be getting in-depth with Renegade soon!
