Thankfully, most of us are way past dial-up and counting our connection speed in Kbps. However, some might still be fascinated with how dial-up worked. How did those weird noises we heard at the beginning of a dial-up connection establish a data connection? Could I reproduce the sounds like Cap’n Crunch and establish a connection?
Oona Räisänen has analyzed a dial-up connection to show what is going on at the different points in the timeline of the handshake.
If you like the image like I do, you can order it as a poster.
If you would like a bit more nostalgia, you can listen to the embedded clip below for an example dial-up noise as you’re reading the image.
(Credit: absorptions)