The problem with this type of "joke" is, unless the reader is fairly technical and knows something about chips and especially about modems, it almost sounds as though it would work! That has been true in the two cases I know of. The instructions sounded plausible to a couple of newcomers to electronics, and caused them to open up their modems, and when they found a slight match between their modems construction and the 24to96 instructions, they jumped in and hacked away. The fact that these files were retrieved from BBS's with solid reputations for policing the quality and authenticity of the files gave the experimenter's confidence they would not have felt had they retrieved the data from the National Enquirer! In addition, overly enthusiastic uploaders have added testimonials to the explanation of the file (maybe to enhance the joke?) such as "I've tried this and it really works!". If they have, they should contact me, and we will start up another company to build 9600 modems this new and revolutionary way which will surely blow all competitors away, since the chips listed are 1/6th the cost of the next cheapest 9600 bps chip set.
The problem with this type of "joke" is, unless the reader is fairly technical and knows something about chips and especially about modems, it almost sounds as though it would work! That has been true in the two cases I know of. The instructions sounded plausible to a couple of newcomers to electronics, and caused them to open up their modems, and when they found a slight match between their modems construction and the 24to96 instructions, they jumped in and hacked away. The fact that these files were retrieved from BBS's with solid reputations for policing the quality and authenticity of the files gave the experimenter's confidence they would not have felt had they retrieved the data from the National Enquirer! In addition, overly enthusiastic uploaders have added testimonials to the explanation of the file (maybe to enhance the joke?) such as "I've tried this and it really works!". If they have, they should contact me, and we will start up another company to build 9600 modems this new and revolutionary way which will surely blow all competitors away, since the chips listed are 1/6th the cost of the next cheapest 9600 bps chip set.