I remember using a 300 baud modem with an acoustic coupler (rubber-cupped cradle). After a while, that got swapped out for a electrically-connected/jacked 1200 baud modem.

That also made "war dialing" practical. Not something I engaged in (kind of wish now that I'd been more "interesting"), but the business I was connecting to had to block an ex-employee a couple of times, who kept finding their dial-in number.

Today's systems may be way faster and more "entertaining", in a mass sense. But I miss the old culture.

Including the openness and exchange. If you were interested, and you weren't a jerk, people would bend over backwards to help you. And they enjoyed doing so -- well, most of them. Which is how I ended up on those first systems, anyway.

I think a lot of people miss that culture. But, it just doesn't scale to the general population.