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Historical Studies in Computing, Information, and Society pp 29–50Cite as

The Modem that Still Connects Us

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Part of the book series: History of Computing ((HC))

Abstract

The history of the modem demonstrates that digitization is a hybrid process, in which analog-digital techniques were (and still are) essential. As an indispensable “gateway technology,” the modem has integrated heterogeneous information infrastructures since the 1960s, by layering a digital system on top of an installed analog base. Its transparency (especially its visibility and audibility) has changed with changes in technology, the regulation of telecommunications, and user experiences. The surprising resiliency of the modem—its long life as an interim technology—challenges the digital technological progress narrative. Ironically, the most sustained progress narrative in this story celebrates rapid advances in the speed and functions of the supposedly outdated modem.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Negroponte (1995).

  2. 2.

    On the concept of soundscape in the history of technology, see Thompson (2002).

  3. 3.

    Madrigal (2012).

  4. 4.

    Although fiber-optic systems have typically used digital modulation (shutting on and off the laser beam) to represent 1’s and 0’s, some recent fiber-optic systems employ analog modulation to enable a hybrid fiber/coax technology, which has become a popular technology for cable television in the United States. See Hecht (2015), pp. 8–9, 50, 231, 686–690.

  5. 5.

    On this methodology, see Kline (2019): pp. 19–39.

  6. 6.

    On gateway technologies, layering, and transparency in infrastructure studies, see Starr (1999); and Jackson et al. (2007).

  7. 7.

    On technological narratives, see Nye (2003).

  8. 8.

    Compare Pahlavan and Holsinger (1988), with Edwards (1996), 140; and Russell (2014), 140. I use the term “modem” anachronistically in this section. AT&T engineers coined the term in the late 1930s to designate analog rather than digital transmission, for a modulation-demodulation technique in telephony, in which analog signals modulated an analog carrier to increase channel capacity. See Chestnut et al. (1938), on 107.

  9. 9.

    The term “bits per second” is anachronistic here because the term “bit,” short for “binary digit,” was not coined until 1948. See Shannon (1948), 623–656.

  10. 10.

    Hamilton et al. (1925); Duncan et al. (1944); O’Neill (1985), 702, 728–729; and Pahlavan and Holsinger,” Voice-Band Data Communication Modems,” 17.

  11. 11.

    Everett et al. (1957), 148–155; rpt. in IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, 5, no. 4 (Oct. 1983): 330–339; Valley (1985); Edwards (1996), Chap. 3; Hughes (1998); chap. 2; Redmond and Smith (2000).

  12. 12.

    Harrington (1983); and Ogletree et al. (1957), 156–160.

  13. 13.

    Ruppel (1957); Irland (1958); Enticknap and Schuster (1959); James (1959); Soffel and Spack (1959).

  14. 14.

    Everett et al. (1957), 150; and Anonymous (1957), on 64.

  15. 15.

    Ruppel (1957), 402.

  16. 16.

    Norberg (2005).

  17. 17.

    Russell (2014), 140–141.

  18. 18.

    Anonymous (1958a); and New York Times, Feb. 2, 1958. On the trope of an “electronic brain,” see Martin (1993).

  19. 19.

    Anonymous (1958b).

  20. 20.

    Alexander et al. (1960), on 474.

  21. 21.

    O’Neill (1985), 703.

  22. 22.

    Malthaner (1957).

  23. 23.

    Gryb (1957); and Weber (1959).

  24. 24.

    At this time, the Bell system preferred to use the term “data subset,” or more commonly “data set,” rather than “modem,” which it reserved for analog-to-analog modulation-demodulation schemes. See, e.g., Peterson (1957), on 188; Student (1965), on 177; and Lundry and Willey (1965) on 762. For an exception, see Alexander et al. (1960), 433, 474. That usage prevailed until the early 1970s; see, e.g., Davey (1972).

  25. 25.

    Anonymous (1961). These papers were later published. See Saltzberg and Sokoler (1962); and Baker (1962).

  26. 26.

    On the concept of imagined users, see Oudshoorn and Pinch (2003), 1–28.

  27. 27.

    Anonymous (1962a), on 75–77; Saltzberg and Sokoler (1962); Baker (1962); AT&T, “Data Communications,” sales booklet, Oct. 1962, https://ia800102.us.archive.org/1/items/TNM_Data-phone_Service_data_over_telephone_-_Bell_20171205_0142/TNM_Data-phone_Service_data_over_telephone_-_Bell_20171205_0142.pdf, accessed Jan. 7, 2019; Anonymous (1962b), on 81; Sokoler (1962); Meyers (1963); and Student (1965)”.

  28. 28.

    Strong and Lockwood (1962).

  29. 29.

    Although the 600 series works with analog inputs and outputs, it is a modem. It uses analog signals to modulate a voiceband carrier, which is demodulated at the receiver to transmit the analog signals.

  30. 30.

    Anonymous (1965) on 37. For the rollout prices, see Anonymous (1962a), 75–76.

  31. 31.

    Computers & Automation, 11, no. 6 (June 1962), 2.

  32. 32.

    Datamation, 8, no. 4 (April 1962): 70.

  33. 33.

    AT&T, “Data Set 202-A,” sales brochure, March 1963, 2, https://ia600101.us.archive.org/19/items/TNM_202A_DATA_phone_data_communication_over_telep_20171204_0210/TNM_202A_DATA_phone_data_communication_over_telep_20171204_0210.pdf, accessed Jan. 7, 2019.

  34. 34.

    Computers & Automation, 10, no. 3 (March 1961), 2; and Datamation, 7, no. 4 (April 1961), 10. AT&T began installing the system in late 1960; see Anonymous (1960).

  35. 35.

    Anonymous (1962c). See, also, “US Agency to Open New Data Network,” New York Times, Jan. 30, 1962. Dial-o-verter advertised that it had installed more than 100 systems in 30 cities in the U.S.; see Datamation, 8, no. 9 (Sep. 1962), 15.

  36. 36.

    AT&T, “Data Set 202-A,” 2.

  37. 37.

    Parkhill (1966), 2–3.

  38. 38.

    Anonymous (1962d).

  39. 39.

    Parker (1965); and Copeland et al. (1995).

  40. 40.

    Plugge and Perry (1961).

  41. 41.

    Anonymous (1962d), 52; Anonymous (1962e); and Emerson et al. (1991), 577.

  42. 42.

    Block diagrams in the IBM 7750 manual (IBM 7750 Programmed Transmission Control Programming Logic and Organization, Reference Manual C22-6695, IBM, 1962, http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/ibm/datacomm/7750/C22-6695_7750_ProgrammingLogic.pdf, accessed Jan. 7, 2019) do not show a modem, but the manual says that one of the functions of the Channel Adapter is to “control digital subsets” (9), the language of the Bell system.

  43. 43.

    Ceruzi (1983), 92–93; Millman (1984), 359; and Stibitz (1993), 112.

  44. 44.

    Norberg and O’Neill (1996), Chap. 2.

  45. 45.

    Fano (1965), on 58; and Fano and Corbató (1966), which is illustrated by a photo montage of the 30 users at work at their terminals.

  46. 46.

    Spicer (2015), on 9. Baud is not equivalent to bits per second, because it refers to the symbol rate of transmission, which is not necessarily equal to the bit rate. See Fist (1996)</Emphasis>, 70.

  47. 47.

    Ossanna et al. (1965), 231–241, on 240. On GE time-sharing and IBM’s response to GE, see Lee (1995); and O’Neill (1995).

  48. 48.

    Campbell-Kelly and Garcia-Swartz (2008); and Edgerton (2007).

  49. 49.

    Campbell-Kelly and Garcia-Swartz (2008), 31.

  50. 50.

    Datamation, 14, no. 8 (August 1968), 86; and Mathison and Walker (1972), on 1261–1263. When the FCC removed the requirement for a protective coupler device in 1976, it reduced the cost of the modem-dependent Fax machine. See Coopersmith (2015), 107.

  51. 51.

    Holtzman and Lawless (1970); Forney (1984), on 632–633; and Pelkey (2007)

  52. 52.

    Pahlavan and Holsinger (1988), 22; and Fist (1996), 697. The United States used the de facto Bell standards until the break-up of AT&T in 1984, when it aligned with the ITU standards. See Held (1991), Chap. 4.

  53. 53.

    Anderson (2016), on 47.

  54. 54.

    Anonymous (1979), on 193; and Humphrey and Smock (1988), 104–110, 112–113, on 104.

  55. 55.

    “The Pennywhistle 103,” Byte, 1, no. 15 (Nov. 1976), 60 (ad); Anonymous (1979), 169–170, 174, 177; Maxwell (1984), 182, on 180. On the Novation Cat, see, e.g., an ad in Byte, 5, no. 4 (April 1980), 265; and Garetz (1983), 82–83.

  56. 56.

    On videotex, see Boczkowski (2004), Chap. 2.

  57. 57.

    Maxwell (1984), 179, 180, 182. The Bell 212 modem was dual speed, running at either 300 bps or 1200 bps; see Fist (1996), 72.

  58. 58.

    Abbate (2010).

  59. 59.

    English (1999), 120, 122. The V.90 was a modem pair. The “digital modem” at the server transmitted downstream at 56 kbps on a digital line, whose PCM signal was decoded and received by the client’s “analog modem.” The analog modem transmitted upstream to the server at 33.6 kbps using the v.34 standard. See Gao (1998).

  60. 60.

    Brand (1987), 23. On Brand, see Turner (2006).

  61. 61.

    Rheingold (1993), 8–9, his emphasis.

  62. 62.

    Negroponte (1995), 207. On the development and extensive use of the Fax machine, see Coopersmith (2015).

  63. 63.

    Fist (1996), 312, 432, 695–698. On the history of digital-signal processing, see Nebeker (1998).

  64. 64.

    The hybridity of the modem, itself, changed over time. It worked mostly by analog electronics, with some digital circuits, up to the 1980s, when the microprocessor turned it into a small digital computer, with some analog circuitry.

  65. 65.

    See, e.g., Pierce (1966); and O’Neill (1985), 708.

  66. 66.

    Aaron (1979); and O’Neill (1985), chap. 18. On the history of PCM, see Millman (1984), 399–417.

  67. 67.

    Wienski (1984).

  68. 68.

    Freer (1996), 57.

  69. 69.

    Anonymous (1999); Chen (1999); Ciciora (2001); and Anonymous (n.d.).

  70. 70.

    Hochfelder (1999).

  71. 71.

    See Kline (2019).

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    Ronald R. Kline

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Correspondence to Ronald R. Kline .

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  1. Department of Information Science, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA

    William Aspray

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Kline, R.R. (2019). The Modem that Still Connects Us. In: Aspray, W. (eds) Historical Studies in Computing, Information, and Society. History of Computing. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18955-6_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18955-6_3

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