My first “modem” was this fantastically beige 300-baud hand-me-down acoustic coupler from 1984: https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/13106/Epson-CX-21-Ac...

A family friend came round and used it to hook up my Atari ST to a local BBS. Mind-blowing. I got a brief glimpse of the future that day.

Local calls not being free, I wasn’t allowed to repeat the experiment until we signed up for MSN in 1996.

Didn’t stop younger me switching on the acoustic coupler with no computer attached and trying “communicate” with it by making “shhhh” noises into the cups :D