VICMODEM

[oldcomputr]

Hi all,
I took some pictures of my VICMODEM and wrote a short post about it; as usual I disassembled the item to see how it's made.
This was easy to open :-)

[oldcomputr]

I just updated the original blog post with an interesting comment from Mr Michael Tomczyk, who tells some more information about the genesis of the VICMODEM.

[English Invader]

Thanks for sharing. The closest thing I have to a VIC Modem is an A3 size advertisement on my wall.

[joshuadenmark]

Super thanks I really appreciate the very high quality pictures on your site, you must have out a lot of effort into this.

[rgrocha]

Wow! Another example of your great talent!!

[ral-clan]

Any information or photos you'd care to add to the Denial Wiki entry for the Vic modem would be greatly appreciated!

http://sleepingelephant.com/denial/wiki ... e=VICModem

[bozimmerman]

Ah, the glorious VIC-1600.

It was my first modem, which I used on my C64 in early 83. I paid $20 for it, used, from some kid at school. I remember being up to the wee hours dialing and listening for blessed dial tones...

Regarding the Canadian C= branded telephone -- It always cracked me up that it required special custom hardware to use it with the VICMODEM since the handset was not detachable. What a strange deal.

- Bo

[orion70]

Wow, Bo Zimmerman? THAT No Zimmerman?

[PhotoJim]

Bo, originally Commodore was going to supply the phone with a detachable handset cord - these phones were rare in Canada at the time - so that you could use the VICmodem the way Americans were meant to, by putting the handset cord into the jack in the modem. The phones were ordered from Northern Telecom, but they were produced with traditional permanently-attached cords, just the way the telephone companies in Canada preferred at the time.

Commodore's solution to this problem was to include the phone anyway but to include a little plastic adapter box with a sliding switch and two RJ-11 jacks. The whole device was beige and plugged into the VICmodem's RJ11 jack. You plugged the phone into one adapter jack, the line into the other, dialed on the phone, and then toggled the switch to force the phone offline and the modem online. It actually worked pretty well.

I owned one of these back in the day (replaced it with a glorious Canadian Pocket Modem 1650 clone) but I'd love to get another one including the little beige adapter. If anyone has one, let me know.