Hello all!
We hope you’ve been doing well! Although midterms are rapidly approaching, we hope you still have some time to spare to relax and watch a movie with us. 😊
Fantasia Screening This Thursday @ 7p.m.
Have you ever seen Fantasia? If not, you should join us this Thursday (March 6th) at 7:00p.m. in ATC3.705, because we are once again collaborating with the Games and Media Library to host a movie screening! Make sure to bring your Comet Card for check in.
Demo of the Week
The demo of the week is Deimos Rising on the iMac G4.
Don’t forget to stop by the lab and play this classic game on one of our vintage computers!
Object of the Week
The object of the week is this 56k Windows Internal Modem!
This modem is perhaps a little too old for our Dell Tower PC.
Before broadband internet became the norm around the early 2000s, dial-up modems were the most common medium for accessing the internet. While currently less than 1% of the US still uses dial-up internet (HowToGeek), its influence on life today is evident in both computing history as well as internet culture; you have likely heard the infamous modem dial-up tone, or heard someone make a joke about being kicked off of the computer so that their parents could make a phone call.
If you’d like to learn more about the history of dial-up internet, this article from HowToGeek offers a brief and interesting introduction. This YouTube video showcases an example of what a dial-up modem handshake sounds like, and if you are curious about what is happening behind the scenes, the description links an excellent write-up by Oona Räisänen describing exactly what is going on step-by-step.
Lab Hours and Room Number
We are located in ATEC 1.705, right next to ATEC’s welcome center. Our open lab hours are:
Monday: 1:00p.m. – 4:00p.m.
Tuesday: 12:00p.m. – 4:00p.m.
Wednesday: 1:00p.m. – 8:00p.m.
Thursday: 12:00p.m. – 4:00p.m.
Friday: 1:00p.m. – 8:00p.m.
Thank you for reading our newsletter! We hope to see you soon and wish you a stress-free week.
Sincerely,
The Media Archeology Lab
The University of Texas at Dallas