What was your first modem? Mine was a 300 baud VICMODEM for my Commodore VIC-20 which included a type in terminal program in the user guide.
You had to manually dial the number with the phone, unplug the coil cable from the handset when you heard the carrier, and plug it into the modem!
@paulrickards my first was a generic internal 2400 baud modem in our family’s IBM PS/1. downloading my first file via xmodem from a local bbs was a shocking moment. “i can… just download games and programs for … free? over a phone line?”
@vga256 Yes! Isn’t it amazing that computers screaming at each other over the phone gave us games!?
@paulrickards i honestly have lost that excitement since broadband became ubiquitous. it’s such a special feeling
@vga256 Yeah, computers were whimsical then.