1.4 KiB
Baud
baud.c is a program to simulate going through a modem. It reads stdin, and prints it to stdout at the provided baud rate (bits per second).
Building
Download baud.c. Change to that directory, and type
make baud
That will generate a file named baud in whatever directory you're in.
If you like,
you can put it in ~/bin or ~/.local/bin or /usr/games/bin or
wherever you prefer.
Running
If you'd like to see what life was like when I got my first modem, try
cat file | ./baud 110 40
Run that for a few hours, then try
cat file | ./baud 1200 20
And you will understand how mind-blowingly fast 1200 baud modems were at the time.
frotz zork1.zip | ./baud 4800
Gives Zork a retro vibe, without being so slow that it's aggravating. I don't think more than a dozen or so people every played Zork over a modem link, but whatever.
Why
Every 10 years or so, somebody asks me for this program. I don't know why.
The other day it happened again, and I couldn't find it soon enough, so I just wrote it again from scratch. I'm putting it on my web site so I don't have to write it again.
License
I'm placing this in the public domain. So there's no license.
Some jurisdictions don't recognize the existence of a public domain. If you live in one of those, you can use the terms of Creative Commons 0.