The Commodore 1660 has a remarkable story behind it. In the early 1980s,
modem manufacturers introduced the world to "tone" dialing modems, or
modems that could dial a phone number using the standard beeping tones
that our phones use. Commodore, always trying to find new ways to bring
the latest technology at the lowest price, decided that it was too expensive
to sell a modem with this capability built in. Instead, they created
the Commodore 1660, a pulse dialing modem with an AUDIO input port. The
audio input plugged in and received the audio output of the Commodore 64 or
Commodore 128 computer. The computer then, using it's own internal sound
generating abilities, would generate the dialing tones itself and merely pipe
them through the modem to the phone line. Pretty ingenious, right? Well,
shady computer users soon discovered that they could force their computer
to pipe OTHER tones through the modem, such as those AT&T used to open
up secured phone lines, allow free long-distance calls, make quarters pop
out of public phones, and other tones. These days, digital technology has
made this capability a thing of the past, but at the time, the 1660 was
a favorite with "Phreakers" and "Hackers".
Model : 1660 Connection : Direct Line/Connect Interface : CBM User port Speed : 300 baud Notes : Pulse/"Tone" dial
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