Re: akamai yesterday - what in the world was that (now old guy stuff)

[Ben Cannon <ben () 6by7 net>]

The Civil Engineering version of this is SWER electrical distribution.  Single-Wire, Earth-Return. And it’s as crazy in 
implementation as it sounds now.




-Ben Cannon
CEO 6x7 Networks & 6x7 Telecom, LLC 
ben () 6by7 net <mailto:ben () 6by7 net>




> On Jan 25, 2020, at 8:24 AM, Allen McKinley Kitchen (gmail) <allenmckinleykitchen () gmail com> wrote:
>
> On Jan 25, 2020, at 08:52, Paul Nash <paul () nashnetworks ca> wrote:
> > 
> > > So, I grew up in South Africa, and one of the more fascinating /
> > > cooler things I saw was a modem which would get you ~50bps (bps, not
> > > Kbps) over a single strand of barbed wire -- you'd hammer a largish
> > > nail into the ground, and clip one alligator[0] clip onto that, and
> > > another alligator clip onto the barbed wire. Repeat the process on the
> > > other side (up to ~5km away), plug the modems in, and bits would
> > > flow... I only saw these used a few times, but always thought they
> > > were cool….
> >
> > Do you remember anything about the actual type of modem?  Or where you deployed them?
> Decades ago, I cobbled together a 20mA current loop interface that may have been an early version of this .. ran a 
> set of Baudot machines (pre-ASCII, upper case & figs only) mostly just to have fun with a set of old ASR 32 
> teletypes.  I used a couple of 500’ spools of zip cord lying on the ground from end to end. Never mind backhoes - it 
> was lawn-mower vulnerable. (However, being flat on the ground seemingly made it less vulnerable to lightning strikes.)
>
> Of course, this was hardly critical infrastructure!
>
> Blessings..
>
> Allen