In article , 123456789
wrote:

Still have my old 300-baud acoustic coupler stored in a
closet somewhere.

Used to carry one of those things around the country with me.
I was amazed that virtually every place I stopped there was a
local AOL dial-up number available...

by the time aol was a thing, 300 baud modems were long obsolete.

When I said I carried one of those things around the country, I
meant the acoustic coupler.

it sounded like you meant 300 baud modems.

Moaa-dem doesn't SOUND like acooooostic coupler to me. But then I don't
use hearing aids (yet)... (Reread Roger Blake's line above that I
replied to and see if you don't agree.)

an acoustic coupler *is* a modem, just one that's acoustically coupled
versus hardwired.

most 300 baud modems were acoustic and even some 1200 baud ones,
although by that time, they were usually hardwired, which was required
for faster speeds.

And they were very much in use during the early AOL days when many
hotel phones were hard wired with no RJ11 sockets available.

i used to bring a screwdriver and an rj11 jack. never a problem.

I just slipped one coupler cup on the phone's mouthpiece, the other on
the phone's earpiece, and I was good to go. 20 seconds max. No moving
hotel furniture, no attacking spiders, no screwing around (literally).
Easy peasy. YMMV...

....and it does.

a screwdriver and an rj11 jack are a lot smaller, with both fitting in
a pants pocket and also supports much faster speeds.

connect it once when first arriving and remove it before checking out.

and if you're staying in a hotel with attacking spiders, you have other
problems than worrying about getting online.