pwhyles:;-) I'm a BBS bloke (and Micronet800/Prestel). The first modem I owned was an acoustic coupler (1200 receive/75 transmit bps); then my trusty Miracle Technology WS2000 (300/300bps).
I forgot about the BBS's and I remember the acoustic coupler. May be the bbs will make a come back as a private way to share music if the industry and the ISP's go that way.
After all BT are not held responsible for what travels over their phone lines.
We had a local bbs around here and it was how the nerds of that day got their smutty stuff
I got a copy of MSDOS from it and it took me 8 hours to download at 3p a minute but it was the chalenge 
It were hard in my day lad!
Ken
Zen Active 8000
By the time a family pays off the mortgage for a home in the suburbs, the home isn't home,and the suburbs aren't suburbs.