I still remember my very first modem, and the pound of flesh that it cost to buy it. But hey, I was on the cutting edge, and I upgraded as often as I could.
Of course, running one of the few bulletin board services (BBS) in the area meant having to make sure that I always had the fastest modem installed; which was always followed but the hours of tweaking needed to squeeze every last baud out of it.
[Cross-posted at Winextra]
