Twilight really pulled out her 30 year old computer out of the canterlot archives

Millenial Luster, eating hot chip and lying… on the couch.

@ABronyAccount  
Tell that to Maud Pie

@soren1015  
I can imagine that lol.

When you Zoom/FaceTime with Princess Twilight, you know it’s bound to have some fantastic friendship lessons. But then again, we’re in the middle of the crazy time, so yeah, I feel for Luster.
 
Also, is it just me or is Twi’s computer seems a little old? It’s looks like a dial up computer or something.

That’s…one way of giving someone neck.

Somewhere out there, Sunset Shimmer is laughing at this.

@Nightweaver20xx
 
I did hear before about people using a toy whistle found in a cereal box to get free long distance phone calls though.

@Selaphiel  
Pepperidge Farm remembers

@Nightweaver20xx  
When you think about it, all computers are made out of rocks.

@Selaphiel
 
@Phantom Rider  
That’s all right, Celestia remembers a time when computers were made out of rocks. Haha, she’s old.

@Selaphiel  
Single files in like 10 pieces across multiple floppy disks. Ah, those were the days.

Remember having to save thing in pieces on multiple disks whenever we wanted to back up our data?

@BigBuggyBastage  
For better or worse, no. I was born in 86, and didn’t come into the world of computing until near the end of 1999, the middle of the PIII era, where 56K was largely in place everywhere.

@Nightweaver20xx  
It’s a wonderful thought. :D
 
But I very much doubt it. Although a human may be able to create something that sounds very much like a modem to our own ears, the signaling rates and frequencies specified for communication, even at one of the lowest baud rates, e.g. Hayes command set & Bell 103 modulation at 100 or 300 baud, would simply be unattainable.
 
Example:  

 
I just cannot see a human hitting and/or alternating between those exact frequencies at 300, let alone 100, times per second, accurately, each and every time.
 
@Altair the dragon-horse  
Oh man, remember the echo problem?

@BigBuggyBastage  
Modems made with plug in jacks appeared in the late seventies. You can also shove at least 1200 baud through an acoustic coupler but you need a clean line and a good phone on real phone lines.
 
@Nightweaver20xx  
Don’t know about humans but this is literally what soft modems do. They’re just sound cards attached to a phone line that emulate those tones.

@BigBuggyBastage  
Stuff like that has me thinking: If a human could perfectly imitate button tones and dial-up sounds, could they theoretically connect to the internet without a modem?

@Nightweaver20xx  
The earlier & lower-cost ones, definitely.
 

 
Those were known as “acoustic coupler” modems. I don’t recall a nominal ‘cutoff’ baud rate for that type. Technology just progressed, and manufacturers finally stuck an RJ-11/-14 jack on them, so all customers had to do was buy a splitter and another phone cord, instead of an entire phone. Remember at this point that, although Bell was being split into many smaller companies, the phone industry still had a virtual monopoly over the equipment, and it was much more common for physical phonesets to be rented to customers.
 
The serial/RS-232 connection was reliable up to about 115,200 bits per second, but could be pushed much higher, to about 256 kbps, IIRC.

@BigBuggyBastage  
Weren’t those the modems you needed to place the phone handset onto?

@Coretz  

 
Probably by a DB-25 serial cable & RS-232 connection, rockin’ at 1,200 baud. :D

Oh no, immersion broken: how the hell is that ancient thing connected to the internet?!
 
@Background Pony #E9FA  
Steve Jobs would be proud of this advancement: instead of a 100+ button keyboard, we’re down to only two buttons! How simple! Just one more step until it’s only one button, right?

You know, I’m not sure Twilight would be bad at setting up a computer…
 
She’d probably be doing everything from the command line, if anything.

@Background Pony #DF1C  
Lustre*

i sill can’t believe they put her the name “ LUSTER “ … they were calling for r34 of that lusty bitch

I love how the keyboard is just two giant keys, one for each hoof.