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Histor

of
Modems
of being
online

Modems grew out of the need to

connect teletype machines over
ordinary phone lines instead of more
expensive leased lines which had
previously been used for current
loop-based
teleprinters
and
automated telegraphs.

George Stibitz
connected a
New Hampshire
teletype to a
computer in
New York City
by a subscriber
telephone line
in

1940

In 1943, IBM adapted this technology

to their unit record equipment and
were able to transmit punched cards at
25 bits/second.

Mass-produced modems in the United States began as

part of the SAGE air-defense system in 1958,
connecting terminals at various airbases, radar sites,
and command-and-control centers to the SAGE director
centers scattered around the U.S. and Canada.

In 1962, AT&T introduced the Bell 103 Data

Phone, which set the standard for 300-baud
full-duplex modems. Until 1984, AT&T held a
monopoly on the phone system in the United
States, so only AT&T could provide modems
to work on its network. The monopoly stifled
modem innovation until the 1968 Carterfone
decision opened the market for third-party
phone devices, albeit in a limited fashion.

Non-Bell companies began selling computer modems. One of the most notable
for our purposes was the Hayes 80-103A, a 300-baud Bell 103A-compatible
modem that happened to be the first modem created for a personal computer.
Dale Heatherington (shown here) and Dennis C. Hayes designed it for S-100
bus computers of the day, such as the Altair 8800 and the IMSAI 8080.

The first smartmodem

In 1981, D.C. Hayes Associates introduced its seminal Hayes Stack
Smartmodem. The 300-baud modem was the first to integrate its
own command set -- one that became an industry standard.

Early home PC modems

Modems for the early personal computers of the late 1970s and early
1980s were a mix of direct-connect (where the user plugged the phone
line directly into the modem) and acoustic models.

The early IBM PC era

From the mid-1980s onward,
IBM PC clones dominated the
PC market, leading to a new
era of internal ISA (and later
PCI) modem cards designed
for PC compatibles. External
serial modems held on
strong, however, and around
this time speedy 2400 bps
modems emerged on the
market.

Voice modems and smart modems

In the mid-1990s (when modem
speeds ranged from 28.8 kbps to 33.6
kbps), internal PCI modems became
such a commodity that prices plunged
and vendors began to ship modems
as standard components of desktop
PCs and laptops.

The land of
56kbps
In the late 1990s,
modem
manufacturers
bumped up
against the
theoretical and
legal limits of
analog telephone
data transfer
speeds.

USB modems
Though dial-up modems
were once standard in
PCs, they are becoming
scarce due to the
predominance of
broadband internet
access. Companies still
sell modems that connect
through external serial
ports and internal PCI
slots, but one common
approach is to plug in a
tiny USB modem (like the
ones shown here) when
you need dial-up.

Beyond dial-up
Having reached the limits of analog modem technology,
companies tried various new approaches to sate the public's
demand for ever-faster modem speeds. The first alternative was
all-digital phone lines (ISDN), though their expensiveness limited
their popularity. In the early 2000s, modems that worked over
cable TV lines won a following.

http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/getting-connected-a-history-of-modems657479
http://www2.rad.com/networks/2005/modems/history.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletin_board_system
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modem
http://www.infoworld.com/d/networking/history-modems-60-years-going-online573&current=2&last=1#slideshowTop