Tech Byts
Building Knowledge at  Dublin for the 21st Century
Issue  #6    January 12, 1998
Hardware Byts

Modems - the device used by your computer to send information back and forth across phone lines.

Your modem takes the files on your computer, breaks them down into byts (remember studying base 2? The old computers remembered everything in 1's and 0's, either "on" or "off". Each letter on the keyboard is given a code called "Ascii" which is a newer generation of that old base 2). Anyhow, the modem translates the document on your computer into Ascii and sends signals through that tiny telephone wire to another computer with a modem that translates it back so that it can be read by the person at the other end.

Of course, to do this so that it does not take forever to receive the info, the faster the modem, the better. This speed rate of transfer is known as the baud rate. Currently, the new modems and ISP (Internet Service Providers) are 56Kbps(Kilobyts per second). Most computers currently have modems with 28.8 or 33kbps. When we connect to the Internet in the building we will have a telecommunications "hub" which is a little box that we will enable more than one of us to use the phone line at a time. This hub will be the traffic director for byts.