1018
We ignored the signs.
(lemmy.nz)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2026
1018 points (98.8% liked)
Programmer Humor
32965 readers
1837 users here now
Welcome to Programmer Humor!
This is a place where you can post jokes, memes, humor, etc. related to programming!
For sharing awful code theres also Programming Horror.
Rules
- Keep content in english
- No advertisements
- Posts must be related to programming or programmer topics
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
People take it for granted but it's actually such a cool bit of engineering, we had a world-changing technology, but it would take decades to get lines set up and wouldn't really be too useful until then. But engineers realized by literally playing and listening to beeps over an existing widespread utility in phone lines, you've just given almost everyone access to the internet overnight, with almost 0 infrastructure cost.
Today I found out dial-up literally used the phone lines.
All the pieces were there, I just never thought about it.
This pic is an acoustic coupler, which played sounds and listened to them from the handset. Modems would connect directly to the phone circuit, bypassing actual sound waves (although they did still have a little speaker so the you could hear what they received).
Found the gen Z kid lol.
Anyone who actually used it was painfully aware of that fact. If anyone wanted to make a phone call, no more internet for you, and in some cases incoming phone calls could bounce you offline. Some people paid for a dedicated phone line for the internet but that was extremely rare for personal use.