Just got my internet upgraded. ooo can't wait to post this on myspace page

 Ah, the late 90s. A time when frosted tips were considered fashionable, Y2K was going to end civilization, and the U.S. Robotics 56K dial-up modem was the absolute king of the digital jungle. Forget fiber, forget Wi-Fi, heck—forget basic sanity. Back then, your best shot at “high-speed internet” was listening to a box of circuits scream like R2-D2 having a panic attack while you prayed AOL didn’t kick you off after three minutes. And yes, 56K meant 56 kilobits per second, not kilobytes. That’s right—your toaster today probably processes more data than this “cutting-edge” piece of hardware.

Here’s a fun bit of trivia: the U.S. Robotics 56K modem wasn’t technically guaranteed to hit 56K speeds. In fact, thanks to pesky things like line noise, poor infrastructure, or just the universe hating you, most people averaged closer to 40–44K. And yet, at the time, that was mind-blowingly fast. We’re talking “download a single MP3 in just under an hour” fast. No joke, a whole album was basically a summer project. Kids today will never know the struggle of secretly starting a download at midnight, only to have your mom pick up the phone and nuke your progress at 98%.

Another little nugget of wisdom: U.S. Robotics named itself after the fictional corporation from Isaac Asimov’s sci-fi stories. Very cool on paper, but let’s be honest—Asimov probably didn’t envision his futuristic company making beige plastic boxes that translated beeps and static into pixelated GeoCities pages with dancing GIFs. Still, they had the branding right. The modem did feel like a tiny robot living in your wall socket, screaming in machine language just to let you check your Hotmail.

And finally, let’s not forget the legendary LED light show. The front panel of a U.S. Robotics modem looked like a Christmas decoration designed by NASA. RX, TX, CD, OH—every tiny green light had a job, and you felt like a computer hacker straight out of “Hackers” when you watched them flicker. In reality, you were just loading Ask Jeeves at a speed slower than carrier pigeons, but hey—it was the future, and U.S. Robotics gave it to us one shrieking dial tone at a time.

---

When in Doubt, Update: How a Fresh Copy of PuTTY Saved My Sanity

There I was, staring at an error message that made absolutely no sense. All I wanted to do was SSH into a router—something I’ve done hundreds of times before. But PuTTY decided today was the day it would betray me. No matter what settings I tweaked or what credentials I double-checked, that annoying connection error just wouldn’t go away. Naturally, I blamed everything else first: the router, the firewall, the universe. Spoiler alert—it was PuTTY all along.

After far too much troubleshooting, I did the one thing I should’ve done first: I checked if PuTTY was up to date. Turns out, my trusty old version was ancient—like “belongs in a museum” ancient. I downloaded the latest release, installed it, and boom—SSH connection established instantly. No errors, no drama, just smooth sailing. Apparently, the new version had updated encryption and key exchange support that the router expected.

So, if you ever find yourself stuck with some cryptic PuTTY error when connecting to your favorite network gear, do yourself a favor: stop overthinking it and just grab the latest version. Sometimes, the simplest solution really is check your software version.

When a Computer Cost Less Than a Company Car: The Dynabyte Throwback

This ad is such a great snapshot of the early days of personal and business computing. It’s promoting the Dynabyte computer system, which was marketed as a practical, affordable way for businesses to fully automate their bookkeeping, payroll, and reporting. The copy really leans into the idea that this system could replace piles of manual work with simple programs, and it even highlights compatibility with popular programming languages of the time like BASIC, FORTRAN, COBOL, and PASCAL. Back then, having a machine that could handle accounts receivable or inventory control felt like a huge leap forward for small companies.

What stands out most visually is the retro look of the equipment and the woman using it. The system has those classic wood-paneled units stacked on top of each other, and she’s loading in a disk—likely one of the 5¼-inch or 8-inch floppy disks that the ad brags about. It’s almost funny to see them tout "up to 2 million words" of storage as a big deal, when today even the smallest flash drive can hold thousands of times more. Still, in its time, this was cutting-edge technology that made computer power more accessible outside giant corporations or universities.

The tone of the ad really drives home how computers were starting to become more mainstream in the business world. They talk about overnight service, modular expansion, and affordability “for less than a new company car,” which shows they were trying to frame the purchase as both practical and forward-thinking. Looking at it now, there’s a certain charm in the optimism—this idea that installing one of these big, clunky machines could modernize your whole business almost overnight. It’s a mix of nostalgia and a reminder of just how quickly technology has evolved.

The Kenbak-1: The First Personal Computer You’ve Probably Never Heard Of

 When people think of the first personal computer, names like the Apple I or the Altair 8800 often come to mind. But before those machines made waves in the mid-1970s, there was the Kenbak-1. Released in 1971 by John Blankenbaker of Kenbak Corporation, the Kenbak-1 is widely recognized as the world’s first personal computer. It was a modest-looking machine housed in a metal case with rows of switches and lights for input and output, but it set the stage for the revolution that followed.

The Kenbak-1 was powered by small-scale integration TTL chips instead of a microprocessor—since the first commercial microprocessors hadn’t been released yet. It had just 256 bytes of memory and relied on toggle switches to enter instructions. Users would program it in machine code, flipping switches to input binary instructions and watching LEDs blink out results. It may sound primitive today, but in 1971 this was groundbreaking. It offered individuals—mainly students and hobbyists—a way to directly experiment with computing without needing access to a massive mainframe.

Only about 40 Kenbak-1 units were ever built and sold, making it incredibly rare today. Its commercial failure was due in part to its high cost ($750 at the time, roughly $5,000 today) and its complexity for casual users. Still, it represents a critical “proof of concept” moment: that a computer could be personal, small, and affordable enough for a single individual, rather than a corporate or academic institution, to own.

Looking back, the Kenbak-1 is a fascinating piece of computing history that deserves more recognition. While it never achieved widespread adoption, it laid the groundwork for the personal computing movement that would explode just a few years later. For collectors and enthusiasts, it remains a holy grail artifact—a reminder that even the biggest technological revolutions often begin with small, overlooked experiments.

If you enjoy learning about rare and fascinating milestones in computing history like the Kenbak-1, consider supporting NetworkDataPedia. Sponsorships help us continue to research, write, and share stories about the technologies and pioneers that shaped our digital world. Your support allows us to keep this knowledge accessible to a wide audience, while also providing visibility for your brand within a community of IT professionals, engineers, and tech enthusiasts. Get in touch today to explore sponsorship opportunities and be part of preserving and sharing the history of technology.

WAN-na Test Your Network? Just Copy Some Files, Dude!

When it comes to testing your WAN links, people often overcomplicate things. They bust out fancy monitoring tools, graphs that look like stock charts, and dashboards with more colors than a bag of Skittles. But here’s the deal: sometimes the best way to know if your WAN link is healthy is to just… copy a file. Yup. Old school, drag-and-drop style. Think of it like kicking the tires on a car—except the tires are digital, and the car is your bandwidth.

Copying files across your WAN is like asking your network, “Bro, can you handle this?” And the network either flexes and moves that file like a champ, or it wheezes like a smoker running a marathon. You’ll see the truth instantly—no need for a PhD in network analytics. If that file transfer crawls slower than a sloth on NyQuil, you’ve got a problem. And if it zooms across like your buddy’s new fiber line, congratulations, your WAN is feeling strong today.

Here’s the beauty of the file-copy test: it’s real-world, relatable, and brutally honest. No synthetic numbers, no simulated packets—just raw, everyday file transfer action across real equipment, using real servers and clients. It’s the same activity your users are probably doing anyway (and then complaining about when it doesn’t work). By mimicking real behavior, you’re testing not just the WAN, but also whether your users are about to storm your desk with pitchforks and support tickets.

And let’s be honest, it’s kind of satisfying. Watching that progress bar race to 100% feels like victory. Watching it stall at 2% feels like despair. Either way, you’ll know whether your WAN is ready for battle or in desperate need of reinforcements. So before you go spending thousands on some “enterprise link validation software,” try writing and reading a chunky file as well as a bunch of small files and see what happens. It’s cheap, easy, and occasionally hilarious. WAN testing doesn’t have to be rocket science—it just has to work. 

I've written a few posts already how to calculate the theoretical time it takes to transmit data, but you can never account for processing latency, so develop your own baselines.

When you get the hang of it you can always write a batch file schedule it and save your results.