But everything's a lot faster nowadays, right?

It's the 1980s, and this big bank is consolidating its data centers spread across the U.S., according to an IT pilot fish working there.

"They were running data centers in Maine, New York and Washington state," fish says. "They were going to eliminate the Maine mainframe, keeping only peripheral equipment like printers and check sorters there.

"Because the New York mainframe was running at almost maximum capacity, they decided to run the check sorter through the Washington mainframe. They hired a large third-party company to make the necessary connections."

There aren't any high-speed telecom lines in the Maine location, so to send the data across the 3,000 miles between Maine and Washington, the plan is to use a geostationary satellite to connect the two locations.

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