1st
Modulator-demodulator
When I was in high school, we lived on a road that full-sized school buses couldn’t access, so my sister and I and the neighbor kids all had to wait around for upwards of ninety minutes after school for the only vehicle the district had that could make it around those tight turns. In other words, yes; I rode the short bus. So now you know that about me.
During those interminable wasted hours I often had nothing with which to amuse myself other than a row of pay-phones. I had memorized the 800 number for GEnie, which at the time was the closest thing to an internet my parents were willing to pay for. So I would call up General Electric’s friendly modem bank and whistle the carrier tones at it. I got pretty good: I could negotiate most of the way through the connect sequence before the machinery on the other end would start over or hang up.
I dreamed of performing this act onstage one day. I’d take requests: “Yes, you sir, how many data bits? Parity or no parity? Did someone say V.32?”
I’d be the enigmatic crooner who blew into town for one bourbon-soaked night, leaving at dawn in a cloud of dust and legend. No one ever got close enough to ask his name, but the likes of his CRC-32 ain’t been seen since the days of ZMODEM.
And some nights, when the moon is new and the wind is blowing just right, if you listen — if you really listen — you can just barely hear that melancholy wisp of a voice:
+++ATH0
NO CARRIER.
