What is an acoustic clutch?
Acoustic clutch is a device that sends and receives computer data via telephone using sounds rather than electrical signals. The device was popular in the first days of using the Internet when traditional modems were not always practical. Today they are seen mainly in countries with less advanced telecommunications networks and devices used by deaf people to call phone calls.
At the same time, it was not possible to use a standard modem in many places that connected to the telephone wall socket. This could sometimes be a physical problem when the phone cables went directly to the wall, which means there was no drawer. In other cases, there were laws that prohibit anyone in connecting electrical devices directly to the telephone system.
The solution for people who want to connect to the Internet was an acoustic clutch. The most common type was the device on which you placed a phone handset. Usually there was padded seals so no noise could have been in or out of or fromStku and headphones.
The device was then transferred and accepted tones that could convert computers at each end into data. You can get an idea of how it works when you press the buttons on your phone today and each digits give a slightly different noise. Even if you are not old enough to remember them, you may have seen an acoustic clutch in movies such as Wargames or Ferris Bueller's Day off , where the characters Matthew Broderick used them to access computers through a telephone network.
Today, few computer users in developed countries are needed an acoustic clutch. However, they can be useful when visiting countries where some phones are still firmly connected and where there is no network of mobile phones that would allow the use of mobile broadband. Some travelers even use them to connect to the Internet via publicPayment phones. Like today's faster Acusutic Cowuplers, they are still just about half as fast as the standard connection to dialing, this technique is far from ideal, but it can be temporary for less data-intensive tasks such as e-mail control.
Acoustic bonds are also still used in some devices used by deaf people, known for terms such as Minicom or Teletpewriter. Each user will enter a message that is then converted to sounds sent via headphones and then converted back to a text that appears on the screen on the device at the other end. In some cases, the deaf person is connected to the operator who has a device, and then transmits messages to and from a fully hearing caller on a normal phone.