http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9dpXHnJXaE

I'm a 90's kid. I remember waiting ages for a single page to load and cursing if someone picked up the phone receiver

I saw this vid already but never thought to post it here

Well, all I can say, is that the older accoustic modems were apparently quite common even into the early 80s (Atari released one for its Atari 400 and Atari 800 systems, infact, since I saw a picture of one from an old 1983 computer book, possibly from SYBEX Publishing but I'm not sure).

On that note, I've got several technology items from the 1970s and earlier, with the earliest complete system being an Atari 2600/VCS (1979 model), not to mention that I also have an old 8 inch floppy disk from Digital Equipment Corporation with a 1975 copyright, a book about computers from 1962 (with punched cards being shown on the front cover, in many interesting and different colors), one from either 1964 or 1965 that was obviously aimed largely at IBM System/360 users (written by Gordon B. Davis), and even one from 1973, known as "Computers: Those Amazing Machines".

Infact, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the accoustic modem shown in the above video was originally intended for use with the IBM System/360 systems, since that line of systems introduced a number of industry standards to the technology industry itself, including ports and cabling if I remember correctly (I'll have to look back at the pages regarding these systems online to be sure).