modem
Tue Aug 22 2000 at 3:01:14
The first time I saw the word "modem" was (curiously enough) in a Sunday Tank McNamara strip in the late 1970s. A sports reporter had been sent to the boondocks to cover some local sports event. He was frantic about the lack of facilities at the stadium; he screamed "
Where's my modem!!?!?!" in panic. One of the other 'casters held up a pigeon in a cage and said "Meet 'Modem' ".
When, in college, I got to actually use one of the thingies, modems were the strangest-looking things I'd ever seen. They were boxes about 9 inches long, 5 inches wide, and 3 inches high