J Worgan wrote:
> does anyone make acoustical coupler modems any more?
>
> does any one know how to make one?

I have a family friend who is an architect and spends a good amount of 
time traveling all over the world in lots of places. At least as of a 
few years ago, he carried an acoustic coupler so he could get connected 
in all sorts of places where plugging straight into the phone line 
wasn't practical or possible. Supposedly it worked pretty well all 
things considered.

It was a little different than the old ones though. His (and most of the 
"new" ones on the market today) just act as translators to a computer's 
existing modem. The old ones from the bad ol' days were complete modems 
that plugged into a computer via serial or whatever standard interface 
they had. The new ones are still pretty widely available, although like 
the other responder said, pretty pricey.

The 300 baud one my family used in the early 80s wasn't even a 
Smartmodem - you had to squish the phone onto the coupler, dial it 
manually, push a button on the coupler to tell it it was connecting, and 
tell the terminal program that you were connecting. Was before the ATDT 
command was widespread :)

I'm pretty into retro-tech (but I suppose most of us here are, 
considering the target of the list) but acoustic couplers are one thing 
I don't miss. Nothing like having a long download killed by someone 
bumping it, making a loud noise near it, or just because it was the 
second Tuesday of the month and it didn't feel like staying connected 
anymore.

Scott



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