30, 20, and 10 Years Ago in OPN

“You need a MODEM (short for modulator-demodulator)—a box or internal card costing a few hundred dollars that converts the characters that you type on the screen to a beeping code that can be sent over the telephone lines. Modems do their conversion at a speed referred to as the baud rate, roughly 10 times the number of characters transmitted per second. Faster is better, but more expensive. Since practically all services today offer 1200 baud connection and higher, buy the fastest multiple-baud-rate modem you can afford. Remember: you pay by the connect hour.”