I have been working with wireless IP networking since 1994, my first wireless modem was a Ricochet Modem from Metricom, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricochet_(internet_service), I was managing a network in Fremont and San Jose at the time and was constantly frustrated by having to dial in to Pacific Bell Internet Service in order to check on a finicky batch processing program for MRP that our company was using. I was looking for a way to do this wirelessly or at least on demand and started using this service. Looking back on it, it was actually pretty amazing stuff. I just happened to live in an area where they were deploying this service and decided to give it a try. I was trying to use wireless to solve a very real issue that I had and the service worked perfectly.
I am always facinated by the forerunners of actual mass adoption basically because it is often the case that we do not know what we have until it is gone. I remember that this service ran on 900 Mhz and had great range. It was very finicky to set up on Windows NT and required a serial port, Dial Up Networking Client and 3 toes of a rare south american bat to be put in the brew, but once you got it working, magic!
I bow hunt and had access at the time to a piece of property up by the Mount Hamiliton Observatory, I used to go up there very early and remember once sitting in my Ford Bronco in the dark and using my laptop to "dial-in" to the corporate network, check that the batch process had worked and then close up my laptop, put on my camoflage gloves, grab my bow and go hunting. I marvelled at how such brand new cutting edge technology could enable me to pursue such a base level and primative activity. Hey, it was not supposed to work, I was way to far from the modem I was using, but it did work through some environmental anomally that allowed the signal to bounce back and fore between my modem and the reciever on the other end, again magic!
One of the things that we need to remember over time is that it is the application of technology to enhance our lives that is important, not the technology itself.
KD5YDN
