> On Fri, Nov 17, 2023 at 08:26:21AM -0800, Rich Shepard wrote: > > I need to download ~15G of data from a web site. Using a PLUG mail list
Apropos of not much, when I first got on this crazy internet merry-go-round, the nearest host was UCBVAX in Berkeley, and we connected with modems. I connected one evening a week at Tektronix, originally using a 300 baud modem. With start and stop and parity bits for a serial line, that was 30 bytes per second. Telephone long distance rates were 50 cents (1970) per minute. Ignoring frequent outages, that pencils out to one 1970 dollar per 3.6 kilobytes. Inflation is 7.75x from 1970 to 2023, so that is $7.75 (2023) per 3.6 kB, a bit more than $2 per kilobyte, hence thirty million dollars (and 16 years) to move 15 gigabytes at 300 baud. Pro tip: if your time machine breaks and you find yourself in this situation, buy a faster modem. Or a shit-ton of the fastest Telebit modems available, and connect them with leased lines. We did that in the late 1970s as well. Then Randy Bush helped us connect to the Real Internet. Oh, the bad old days (except for Randy and friends). I will "soon" install 100/100 Mbps Ziply fiber for $20/month. I could upgrade to 2000/2000 Mbps (I don't need that much, I don't stream movies) for $70/month. That's one minute to move 15 gigabytes. But first, I upgrade all machines to Debian Bookworm, and my websites from moinmoin wiki to mediawiki, and harden my firewall and security in general. A struggle, given my 70yo-yet-still-immature brain. Fortunately, kids are too busy gaming to get on my lawn. Keith L. -- Keith Lofstrom kei...@keithl.com
