I got my first modem in 1994, a 14.4k Amigo Communion internal modem dad bought for my birthday for the princely sum of $400. I didn't know it at the time but that turned out to be a really top notch modem. Being internal meant that it had an inbuit 16550 UART which allowed it to do MNP5 and v.42bis compression nicely.
I used said modem to get on the interwebs in 1995 via Macquarie University, thanks to my cousin who was a student there at the time. I didn't really understand what the internet was about at the time, viewing it as the world's largest BBS, where I could type in 'ftp', 'o ftp.wustl.edu' or 'o ftp.cdrom.com' to grab as much share/freeware as I possibly could. I say type because everything then was done over a serial terminal commanding shells on SunOS machines (hardy and laurel.ocs.mq.edu.au; I wonder what they're running today?).
My cousin introduced me to IRC as well, and there I discovered the warez scene. The XDCC that is still used by some today existed 13 years ago! Warez & porn has always driven the hunger for bandwidth and I remember at the time that cracking machines on T1s, T3s, and OC3s were all the rage. That's 1.5Mbps, 45Mbps, and 155Mbps respectively and T1 was considered monster at the time given that most end users had just 14.4k or 28.8k dialup connections. I never imagined that I would have 1.5Mbps to my home, ever.
Fast forward to today - I have a DSL2+ link at home syncing at 21Mbps downstream. That's more than 10x the "monster" T1 connection 13 years ago, albeit with a more limited 1Mbps upstream. And with my recent 3G modem purchase I can get between 3.6 and 7.2Mbps on the move.
On a recent trip to the snow I tested this out and sitting stationary in Jindabyne I was able to get about 30kB/sec (roughly 250kbps) up and down. Moving at 90km/h coming out of Queanbeyan it was still syncing at 7.2Mbps and possible to surf the web - that's how I learnt of Hackett's silver in the 1500m, and of Usain Bolt's 9.69s world record in the 100m sprint. It soon dropped to UMTS 3.6Mbps, and then to GPRS 56k.
GPRS is slow by today's standards but it struck me how far we've come when I'm able to get 5kB/sec moving at over 100km/h in country NSW, the same 5kB/sec that was the top speed achievable by most internet users 10 years ago.
Times have changed for sure. I remember the various speeds that ansi characters would slowly draw and scroll on the screen from remote connections, that's my reference to the speeds back then. Now, I stream music from my home library at work.
Funny you mention testing connections on the way down to the snow. On my last trip down, I picked up my mate from the airport and he had an important document to send out by that day. He was able to finish this document on the drive down. Then email it out from a moving car by the time we passed Campbelltown and forget about it.
Interesting - made me wonder if there's a Moore's Law rule for bandwidth. Turns out that there is (http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/jul04/3922) Edholm's Law of Bandwidth.
Internal modem?! Good?! Hah. Everyone knows they cut corners with them. External was always the way to go.
Ok seriously in '94 they were much of a same.
Did you ever get in to FXP? I never understood copying files from server to server for other people to enjoy.
Lastly, I hope you weren't driving while testing your connectivity.
@Mike: It is amazing what's possible today huh :)
I was at AusNOG 02 today and they did a trivia quiz during dinner. One of the questions was "how much international bandwidth did Telstra have in 1996?". The options were 8Mbps, 12Mbps, 24Mbps, 146Mbps. The correct answer is 12Mbps. Its remarkable to think that with ADSL2+ more than a few people have more bandwidth to their home today than the entire country had just 12 years ago.
@Joachim: hey cool, thanks for that!
@kbcool: Internal was so much better. Most clone PC serial ports were running 16450 UARTs which just didn't cut it if you were trying to multitask. Oh the joys of playing Nyet inside Deskview whilst down/uploading at 14.4k. ;)
I didn't get into FXP but FXP was popular because it enabled "couriers" to spread warez between "pubs". When the servers you're using are connected at T1 speeds and above, and your home link is 14.4k, its a lot easier to FXP than to download something to upload it to another server.
Pubs at the time were typically insecure FTP servers run by various organisations (corps, unis) that may or may not have been cracked. It wasn't really necessary to "own" a server in many cases since they often allowed public uploads to /incoming, and similarly public downloads from the same directory - making them perfect amplifiers for warez distribution if they were well connected (T1 and above). After some time admins started making /incoming writable, but not listable, which was completely useless as that meant people started distributing FTP lists with full file paths.
As for the motivations - I'm not entirely sure other than its a hobby/passion for some. Wired wrote a pretty detailed article on warez distribution in 2005, which as far as I know is pretty accurate. I think there is a paper to be written about how these communities operate. From what I can tell the quality of output of these ethically dubious organisations is higher than anything you could expect from commercial organisations. There are clear rules that control what gets distributed, the "PROPER" & "nuke" system for fixing broken releases. What commercial organisation takes such pride in their releases? Keep in mind that this "scene" stuff is all free too. I really think the answer to fighting piracy is for the music, movie, TV and software industries to learn something from what the warez "scene" is doing wrt distribution, and quality of service.