Connection Reset

Does anyone remember the days before broadband? Today I got a random Connection Reset error on some website, which was quickly fixed by reloading the page. The phrase "connection reset" quickly sparked a path of synapses somewhere, causing me to remember my days with only dialup. You could go with a local service that connected at 56k, but had a download speed of 3.3kb/s (because the ISP cheaped out) or a national service, the most popular of which being AOL. There were other national services, but most didn't have any decent access numbers for many users. So your choice was lower price and local business, or double the speed, shaky connectivity, evil. Oh, and a huge world of advertising, free to access by proprietary keyword. Bah.

Yes, the times when loading pages almost always took more than 5 seconds (gasp! no no, not again!) instead of the comfortable 2-5 second span we broadband users typically enjoy (nonscientific data-collection methods implied here). A time when downloading any sort of file was a long and ardous process, from the largest (maybe a game demo or media) to the low shelf of around 500kb, which, assuming a (top notch for dialup i might add) transfer rate of 10 kb/s, would take 10 seconds.

Eh, jusht 10 shecondsh?

I won't get into the plethora of reasons that 10 seconds can be ardous and unhealthy for you (oh, especially around the time that broadband became prominent among other people you knew), but if you took the evil option (that's AOL, for the snoring), you can also look forward to turning 10 seconds into a continuous gamble. A dramatic horror movie climax, if you will, where the intensity grows as the progress bar stretches toward it's goal. Quickly, youthful databytes! Race quickly before the road falls apart a(Connection reset.)

...gain.