Uploaded November 2024 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Built-in modems were more-or-less standard equipment on home computers sold from the late 1990s to the late 2000s. On desktop PCs, these modems usually took the form of ISA or PCI expansion cards. These modems were made in a rainbow of forms, ranging from fully hardware-based modems similar in function to serial modems, to softmodems that depend on a Windows driver and the host computer's processing power to function, sometimes to the detriment of reliability and quality.
I've had twenty-two such modems, manufactured from 1994 to 2007, sitting in a box for a few years. In this video we will look at each one, and fully test it by calling other modems within my internal telephone network, including a Bell 103-compatible modem to test each modem's capability of talking to ancient devices, as well as calling a BBS over a VoIP telephone line, to test each modem's capability to establish and sustain a connection over challenging line conditions. For the 56K modems, I will call a 56K-capable dial-up access gateway to test the same for 56K connections. The results seen herein show a vast range of quality from one modem to the next, with some surprising things learned along the way.
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Follow me on Mastodon:
https://tech.lgbt/@themaritimegirl
My videos are made possible in part by support via Patreon:
patreon.com/themaritimegirl
Built-in modems were more-or-less standard equipment on home computers sold from the late 1990s to the late 2000s. On desktop PCs, these modems usually took the form of ISA or PCI expansion cards. These modems were made in a rainbow of forms, ranging from fully hardware-based modems similar in function to serial modems, to softmodems that depend on a Windows driver and the host computer's processing power to function, sometimes to the detriment of reliability and quality.
I've had twenty-two such modems, manufactured from 1994 to 2007, sitting in a box for a few years. In this video we will look at each one, and fully test it by calling other modems within my internal telephone network, including a Bell 103-compatible modem to test each modem's capability of talking to ancient devices, as well as calling a BBS over a VoIP telephone line, to test each modem's capability to establish and sustain a connection over challenging line conditions. For the 56K modems, I will call a 56K-capable dial-up access gateway to test the same for 56K connections. The results seen herein show a vast range of quality from one modem to the next, with some surprising things learned along the way.
***
Follow me on Mastodon:
https://tech.lgbt/@themaritimegirl
My videos are made possible in part by support via Patreon:
patreon.com/themaritimegirl
