The Internet

Moved here because it’s not really relevant to firmware…

when the media was touting the “information superhighway”, aka a 64k ISDN line.

Compared to a 14k4-28k8 modem, it probably was a superhighway.

Yes, I know 33k6 and 56k modems exist, but you’d have trouble getting those to sync on many regular phone lines, even after talking to an actual engineer to fiddle the AGC settings (or knowing thy secret incantation to do it yourself).

and thus you could not claim ownership

Don’t be too sure. Wasn’t somebody fairly recently granted trademark rights to the smiley, despite decades of prior art? (but it’s prior art in the rest of the world so we’ll ignore it)

France was late to the internet game anyway. Partly because of the already widespread use of Minitel (which never managed to progress much beyond 1200/75!) and partly because of weird laws that rendered encryption by individuals illegal which was problematic for things like SSL. Eventually they realised it was a lost battle and so the internet boom also started in France. Though Minitel kept on going until June 2012. It actually lasted longer than most payphones!

My 56K modem would never sync at more than 44K, ISDN wasn’t that much of a step up unless you could afford a bonded 128K connection. I had to wait until the first ASDL which was 512KB down – now that was fast – images appeared complete in a second or two, rather than a few minutes watching each line come down. Kind of ruined the anticipation for certain types of images ;-)

Kind of ruined the anticipation for certain types of images ;-)

ARM chips with all the pins visible?

Compared to a 14k4-28k8 modem, it probably was a superhighway.

Oh, very true. Near instant connects, unlikely to be interrupted by some trying to natter, just seems an awful term given how fast things are now.

France was late to the internet game anyway

Only 2 things I remember about France and internet technology, SSL being limited to 40bit, when everyone else was on 128bit, and them making up French words for things and insisting people use them, like courrielle instead of email as loan words aren’t French enough.

given how fast things are now.

Don’t times change. From my landline I can call most places on earth (that aren’t despotic hellholes) and mobile phones in the EU/UK/US/🍁 for free.
Shall we talk about BTs pricing in the ’80s when time of day, distance, and whether or not you used the STD code meant prices varied greatly. ¹

unlikely to be interrupted by some trying to natter

Yay for resumable Zmodem (on systems that supported it), as you just knew when somebody yelled “what’s that infernal racket” that your modem lights were going to blink in a most pitiful way followed by most of them going out. That was Not Good.

SSL being limited to 40bit, when everyone else was on 128bit

To be fair, the original Bush Internet box suffered from a similar affliction. Governments were weird about encryption back then, though I rather suspect that PGP made the point that “cat’s out of the bag and you can’t stop it”.
So instead we’ve had decades of attempts to put spy-friendly back doors into encryption by politicians who clearly failed basic maths.

and them making up French words for things and insisting people use them

That’s usually the Académie Française that are the appointed guardians and defenders of the French language.

At least it isn’t Québec, they are so gung ho on French being French that their stop signs say “Arrêt” because “Stop” is too English. Even the actual French aren’t quite that bad.

Although I must confess that I did have a small rant at work when our internal Facebook-mini said something like “Céline à liké cet message”.
Liké? Liké? What the actual… how is it that French with its rich history never managed to come up with a word for liking something?

That was then followed by amusement as French people are often far too literal for British snarkiness ² and wanted to assure me that there is, in fact, a perfectly good French word…

We have “sandwichs” (no ‘e’, that bothers me more than it ought to) and “weekend” (often shortened to “week”) and all sorts of loan words (including “hula hoop” but not said anything like you’d recognise) in contemporary speech. The correct word for an email is indeed “courriel”, but most people just say “mél” or “e-mél” (pronounced just like the English equivalent).
That’s the thing about French, there’s what’s supposed to be said and what is actually said…
…which is why, I guess, I need to know three different words for the big saucepans – casserole, gamelle, and fait-tout. And being French, they’ve even managed to shorten “fait-tout” down to “fétou” which is grammatically awful but it’s like “bon aprèm”, isn’t it?

Easiest way to start a war in France? Ask a question about some obscure little bit of the language (like what’s the difference between “deuxième” and “seconde” ³) and watch the sparks fly. ;)

¹ Whatever the price it was eye wateringly expensive.

² Which is most of my humour (you know, ‘cos I’m British). I said to my boss just this afternoon that if they slowed down the misbehaving machine any more it would start running in reverse. Nobody understood. Instead I was told that the machine doesn’t have the ability to run in reverse ⁴ and if it did all sorts of things would break ⁵.

³ Technically, one means “the second of two” and the other means “the second of several (more than two)”. There appear to be exceptions, and that’s where the arguments begin.

⁴ Actually it’s a bunch of computer controlled three phase motors so, yeah, it probably could run in reverse.

⁵ That happens anyway. Oh, wait, was I being snarky again? Oops.

Do the French kids use “comme” every few words in every sentence, like?

Well, since we’re talking about language (in a thread titled “The Internet”, naturally), this is as good a place as any to mention something I was just pondering earlier this morning.

I wanted to write a sentence referring to the language spoken by orcs, as in the fantasy creatures. In English, most languages are named after countries, and are therefore proper nouns with a capital letter (French, Japanese, etc.) Others, like Latin and Mandarin, have no obvious connection but they still get the capital letter.

Meanwhile, Tolkien used “elvish” with a small E, and the OED also uses this form (both for the language and the adjective). Tolkien also used “orcish” with a small O, but the OED doesn’t have an entry for it.

The sentence I was trying to write wasn’t in reference to Tolkienesque orcs specifically, but I couldn’t decide whether to use a capital O or not. So, to paraphrase:

Easiest way to start a war on the Internet? Ask a question about some obscure little bit of the language (like what’s the difference between “orcish” and “Orcish” and watch the sparks fly. ;)

I wouldn’t know, I don’t have a French kid…

I think a fairly common verbal tic is something called verlan, I’ve already had a younger woman greet me with “jourbon”. There might be a fair bit more I’ve missed as French is hard enough the right way around. ;)

in a thread titled “The Internet”, naturally

This is Aldershot. Thread titles are polite suggestions.

but I couldn’t decide whether to use a capital O or not

Yes, because the name of a language is a proper noun.

Or if you’d like to hear it from smarter people than me… clause c:
https://www.sussex.ac.uk/informatics/punctuation/capsandabbr/caps

https://www.sussex.ac.uk/informatics/punctuation/capsandabbr/caps

I knew Larry Trask who wrote this. He came to my house to play Mah Jongg.

At least it isn’t Québec, they are so gung ho on French being French that their stop signs say “Arrêt” because “Stop” is too English.

Not to mention that their very existence means Canadian immigration wants to know how well you speak French, even if you have every intention of pretending Quebec doesn’t exist.

It’s been a few days, but…

Meanwhile, Tolkien used “elvish” with a small E

I’m not sure where I got this from (maybe a random Internet search), because I just looked in my printed copy of FOTR and there’s “Elvish” with a capital E staring at me.

This is Aldershot. Thread titles are polite suggestions.

I’m well aware :)