Does anyone here know when Moore Reed first marketed their extremely popular (in the UK!) acoustic couplers (telephone modems). Here's an example:

https://blogs.ethz.ch/its/2022/03/22/it-find-series-1-2022-what-do-you-think-it-could-be/

It's the _date_ I'm interested in. The few sources that I've found date it to 1980; but we have three, and two of them have been dated to the 70s (1970 and 1974). Those dates may well be erroneous, but '1974' was recorded by our founder (now passed on to the great collection in the sky), and he actually used one of these things.

Thanks for any informed speculations or even facts ;-) [1]

John
Volunteer Curator, Newcastle University Historical Computing Collection, UK NUHC Catalogue: https://nuhc.ncl.ac.uk/

[1] Among which I do not include Google's AI, because it - too - has picked up 1980 as the date, and _it_ certainly wasn't around then!.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 2026-01-23 17:02, Another John wrote:

Does anyone here know when Moore Reed first marketed their extremely popular (in the UK!) acoustic couplers (telephone modems). Here's an example:

https://blogs.ethz.ch/its/2022/03/22/it-find-series-1-2022-what-do-you-think-it-could-be/

It's the _date_ I'm interested in. The few sources that I've found date it to 1980; but we have three, and two of them have been dated to the 70s (1970 and 1974). Those dates may well be erroneous, but '1974' was recorded by our founder (now passed on to the great collection in the sky), and he actually used one of these things.

Thanks for any informed speculations or even facts ;-) [1]

In the movie "War games" appeared an acoustic coupler. I have no idea
about the model. Movie is from 1983. I knew already about those devices
when I saw the movie.

Photo here: <http://pc-museum.com/046-imsai8080/wargames.htm>



--
Cheers, Carlos.
ES??, EU??;

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

In <g2gd4mxctk.ln2@Telcontar.valinor> "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> writes:
[snip]

In the movie "War games" appeared an acoustic coupler. I have no idea
about the model. Movie is from 1983. I knew already about those devices
when I saw the movie.

I was using acoustic couplers to dial up in 1978, maybe 1977.

--
_____________________________________________________
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
dannyb@panix.com
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

"Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> writes:

On 2026-01-23 17:02, Another John wrote:

Does anyone here know when Moore Reed first marketed their extremely popular >> (in the UK!) acoustic couplers (telephone modems). Here's an example:

https://blogs.ethz.ch/its/2022/03/22/it-find-series-1-2022-what-do-you-think-it-could-be/

It's the _date_ I'm interested in. The few sources that I've found date it to
1980; but we have three, and two of them have been dated to the 70s (1970 and
1974). Those dates may well be erroneous, but '1974' was recorded by our
founder (now passed on to the great collection in the sky), and he actually >> used one of these things.

Thanks for any informed speculations or even facts ;-) [1]

In the movie "War games" appeared an acoustic coupler. I have no idea
about the model. Movie is from 1983. I knew already about those devices
when I saw the movie.

The one in that movie wasn't made by "Moore Reed", however.

I was using an acoustic coupler in 1976[*] and they'd been
around for probably a decade or more.

[*] both one integrated into the ASR-33 teletype and
a stand-alone version for an LA-120.


--- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

In the movie "War games" appeared an acoustic coupler. I have no idea
about the model. Movie is from 1983. I knew already about those devices when I saw the movie.

Photo here: <http://pc-museum.com/046-imsai8080/wargames.htm>

The device on top of the screen and under the speaker being fondled by
Ally Sheedy here:

http://pc-museum.com/046-imsai8080/wargames-08.jpg

Is actually a direct connect modem, A Cermetek 212A. I have an
identical unit that hasn't been rebadged.

$deity knows why they had a direct connect modem there doing nothing
_and_ an acoustic coupler in use. I don't recognize the acoustic.

De

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 2026-01-24 02:57, Dennis Boone wrote:

> In the movie "War games" appeared an acoustic coupler. I have no idea
> about the model. Movie is from 1983. I knew already about those devices
> when I saw the movie.

> Photo here: <http://pc-museum.com/046-imsai8080/wargames.htm>

The device on top of the screen and under the speaker being fondled by
Ally Sheedy here:

http://pc-museum.com/046-imsai8080/wargames-08.jpg

Is actually a direct connect modem, A Cermetek 212A. I have an
identical unit that hasn't been rebadged.

$deity knows why they had a direct connect modem there doing nothing
_and_ an acoustic coupler in use. I don't recognize the acoustic.

The comments on the page may clarify why:

The "IMSAI 212A" modem on top of the monitor. David is going to break in
to the schools main frame to change Jennifer's grade in biology from C to A!

What is a modem without a acoustic coupler - nothing! Probably going 300
bps at it's best. I think Acoustic couplers was kind of outdated 1983
when this film was made. Probably someone thought it would look good on
film.

--
Cheers, Carlos.
ES??, EU??;

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Sat, 24 Jan 2026 01:57:53 +0000, Dennis Boone wrote:

$deity knows why they had a direct connect modem there doing nothing
_and_ an acoustic coupler in use. I don't recognize the acoustic.

Just a guess, but ... direct-connect modems were somewhat unfamiliar
technology at the time. The fact that the box connected into the phone
system would not have been obvious to most of the audience. Whereas
the acoustic coupler, with an explicit cradle for holding the handset,
makes the connection very clear.

But conversely, the acoustic coupler doesn?t have enough of the
buttons and blinkenlights and flashy techy-type stuff to add interest
to the scene. Which is why the modem is brought in.

#HollywoodLogic

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Sat, 24 Jan 2026 00:27:22 +0000, danny burstein wrote:

In <g2gd4mxctk.ln2@Telcontar.valinor> "Carlos E.R."
<robin_listas@es.invalid> writes:
[snip]

In the movie "War games" appeared an acoustic coupler. I have no idea
about the model. Movie is from 1983. I knew already about those devices >>when I saw the movie.

I was using acoustic couplers to dial up in 1978, maybe 1977.

I was using one in 1974, probably a TC301


--
Using UNIX since v6 (1975)...

Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.5
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Fri, Jan 23 2026, Another John <lalaw44@hotmail.com> wrote:

Does anyone here know when Moore Reed first marketed their extremely popular (in the UK!) acoustic couplers (telephone modems). Here's an example:

https://blogs.ethz.ch/its/2022/03/22/it-find-series-1-2022-what-do-you-think-it-could-be/

It's the _date_ I'm interested in. The few sources that I've found date it to 1980; but we have three, and two of them have been dated to the 70s (1970 and 1974). Those dates may well be erroneous, but '1974' was recorded by our founder (now passed on to the great collection in the sky), and he actually used one of these things.

I remember using one in 1971 when working at ICL (in developing the 2900 series) - no idea what the speed was.

Robert
--
Robert Marshall he/him blueSky: @rajm-uk
Mastodon https://mastodon.world/@rajm

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.5
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 2026-01-24, Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

On 2026-01-23 17:02, Another John wrote:

Does anyone here know when Moore Reed first marketed their extremely popular >> (in the UK!) acoustic couplers (telephone modems). Here's an example:

https://blogs.ethz.ch/its/2022/03/22/it-find-series-1-2022-what-do-you-think-it-could-be/

It's the _date_ I'm interested in. The few sources that I've found date it to
1980; but we have three, and two of them have been dated to the 70s (1970 and
1974). Those dates may well be erroneous, but '1974' was recorded by our
founder (now passed on to the great collection in the sky), and he actually >> used one of these things.

Thanks for any informed speculations or even facts ;-) [1]

In the movie "War games" appeared an acoustic coupler. I have no idea
about the model. Movie is from 1983. I knew already about those devices
when I saw the movie.

Photo here: <http://pc-museum.com/046-imsai8080/wargames.htm>

The amusing thing about those scenes is that the data seems to
be flowing at about 9600 bps. A bit of artistic licence, there.

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | Growth for the sake of
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | growth is the ideology
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | of the cancer cell.
/ \ if you read it the right way. | -- Edward Abbey

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.5
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Charlie Gibbs wrote:

On 2026-01-24, Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

On 2026-01-23 17:02, Another John wrote:

Does anyone here know when Moore Reed first marketed their extremely popular
(in the UK!) acoustic couplers (telephone modems). Here's an example:

https://blogs.ethz.ch/its/2022/03/22/it-find-series-1-2022-what-do-you-think-it-could-be/

It's the _date_ I'm interested in. The few sources that I've found date it to
1980; but we have three, and two of them have been dated to the 70s (1970 and
1974). Those dates may well be erroneous, but '1974' was recorded by our >>> founder (now passed on to the great collection in the sky), and he actually >>> used one of these things.

Thanks for any informed speculations or even facts ;-) [1]

In the movie "War games" appeared an acoustic coupler. I have no idea
about the model. Movie is from 1983. I knew already about those devices
when I saw the movie.

Photo here: <http://pc-museum.com/046-imsai8080/wargames.htm>

The amusing thing about those scenes is that the data seems to
be flowing at about 9600 bps. A bit of artistic licence, there.

i'm sure they didn't want to spend half the movie waiting for
120cps (or whatever it was). i do recall that i could read the
teletype as fast as it could go without any problem (late 70s)
for the connection we had.

and to be precise i have no idea what kind of teletype or
acoustic coupler it was, but it clearly was one since it had
the phone sitting on it.


songbird

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.5
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

songbird <songbird@anthive.com> writes:

Charlie Gibbs wrote:

On 2026-01-24, Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

On 2026-01-23 17:02, Another John wrote:

Does anyone here know when Moore Reed first marketed their extremely popular
(in the UK!) acoustic couplers (telephone modems). Here's an example:

https://blogs.ethz.ch/its/2022/03/22/it-find-series-1-2022-what-do-you-think-it-could-be/

It's the _date_ I'm interested in. The few sources that I've found date it to
1980; but we have three, and two of them have been dated to the 70s (1970 and
1974). Those dates may well be erroneous, but '1974' was recorded by our >>>> founder (now passed on to the great collection in the sky), and he actually
used one of these things.

Thanks for any informed speculations or even facts ;-) [1]

In the movie "War games" appeared an acoustic coupler. I have no idea
about the model. Movie is from 1983. I knew already about those devices >>> when I saw the movie.

Photo here: <http://pc-museum.com/046-imsai8080/wargames.htm>

The amusing thing about those scenes is that the data seems to
be flowing at about 9600 bps. A bit of artistic licence, there.

i'm sure they didn't want to spend half the movie waiting for
120cps (or whatever it was). i do recall that i could read the
teletype as fast as it could go without any problem (late 70s)
for the connection we had.

The ASR-33 teletype printed at up to 10cps[*]. (110 baud).

The Decwriter LA-120 supported 30cps (300 baud)
over an accoustic coupler, and up to 120cps (1200 baud)
hardwired.

[*] Not counting the time required to return the carriage to
column 1.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.5
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Scott Lurndal wrote:

songbird <songbird@anthive.com> writes:

Charlie Gibbs wrote:

On 2026-01-24, Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

On 2026-01-23 17:02, Another John wrote:

Does anyone here know when Moore Reed first marketed their extremely popular
(in the UK!) acoustic couplers (telephone modems). Here's an example: >>>>>
https://blogs.ethz.ch/its/2022/03/22/it-find-series-1-2022-what-do-you-think-it-could-be/

It's the _date_ I'm interested in. The few sources that I've found date it to
1980; but we have three, and two of them have been dated to the 70s (1970 and
1974). Those dates may well be erroneous, but '1974' was recorded by our >>>>> founder (now passed on to the great collection in the sky), and he actually
used one of these things.

Thanks for any informed speculations or even facts ;-) [1]

In the movie "War games" appeared an acoustic coupler. I have no idea >>>> about the model. Movie is from 1983. I knew already about those devices >>>> when I saw the movie.

Photo here: <http://pc-museum.com/046-imsai8080/wargames.htm>

The amusing thing about those scenes is that the data seems to
be flowing at about 9600 bps. A bit of artistic licence, there.

i'm sure they didn't want to spend half the movie waiting for
120cps (or whatever it was). i do recall that i could read the
teletype as fast as it could go without any problem (late 70s)
for the connection we had.

The ASR-33 teletype printed at up to 10cps[*]. (110 baud).

The Decwriter LA-120 supported 30cps (300 baud)
over an accoustic coupler, and up to 120cps (1200 baud)
hardwired.

[*] Not counting the time required to return the carriage to
column 1.

i'm pretty sure it wasn't 300cps as i recall it being
pretty slow. of course we were playing space wars or
star trek. :)

it was my first and only exposure in actually using a
computer for anything until a few years later when i
went off to college for CS.


songbird

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.5
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 1/24/26 13:35, Scott Lurndal wrote:

songbird <songbird@anthive.com> writes:

Charlie Gibbs wrote:

On 2026-01-24, Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

On 2026-01-23 17:02, Another John wrote:

Does anyone here know when Moore Reed first marketed their extremely popular
(in the UK!) acoustic couplers (telephone modems). Here's an example: >>>>>
https://blogs.ethz.ch/its/2022/03/22/it-find-series-1-2022-what-do-you-think-it-could-be/

It's the _date_ I'm interested in. The few sources that I've found date it to
1980; but we have three, and two of them have been dated to the 70s (1970 and
1974). Those dates may well be erroneous, but '1974' was recorded by our >>>>> founder (now passed on to the great collection in the sky), and he actually
used one of these things.

Thanks for any informed speculations or even facts ;-) [1]

In the movie "War games" appeared an acoustic coupler. I have no idea
about the model. Movie is from 1983. I knew already about those devices >>>> when I saw the movie.

Photo here: <http://pc-museum.com/046-imsai8080/wargames.htm>

The amusing thing about those scenes is that the data seems to
be flowing at about 9600 bps. A bit of artistic licence, there.

i'm sure they didn't want to spend half the movie waiting for
120cps (or whatever it was). i do recall that i could read the
teletype as fast as it could go without any problem (late 70s)
for the connection we had.

The ASR-33 teletype printed at up to 10cps[*]. (110 baud).

The Decwriter LA-120 supported 30cps (300 baud)
over an accoustic coupler, and up to 120cps (1200 baud)
hardwired.

[*] Not counting the time required to return the carriage to
column 1.

I seem to recall a max of 3 character times, depending on what position
the print head was in. In another life I wrote a TTY driver fir CICS.
My recall may be faulty.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.5
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 2026-01-25, Peter Flass <Peter@Iron-Spring.com> wrote:

On 1/24/26 13:35, Scott Lurndal wrote:

songbird <songbird@anthive.com> writes:

Charlie Gibbs wrote:

On 2026-01-24, Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

On 2026-01-23 17:02, Another John wrote:

Does anyone here know when Moore Reed first marketed their extremely popular
(in the UK!) acoustic couplers (telephone modems). Here's an example: >>>>>>
https://blogs.ethz.ch/its/2022/03/22/it-find-series-1-2022-what-do-you-think-it-could-be/

It's the _date_ I'm interested in. The few sources that I've found date it to
1980; but we have three, and two of them have been dated to the 70s (1970 and
1974). Those dates may well be erroneous, but '1974' was recorded by our >>>>>> founder (now passed on to the great collection in the sky), and he actually
used one of these things.

Thanks for any informed speculations or even facts ;-) [1]

In the movie "War games" appeared an acoustic coupler. I have no idea >>>>> about the model. Movie is from 1983. I knew already about those devices >>>>> when I saw the movie.

Photo here: <http://pc-museum.com/046-imsai8080/wargames.htm>

The amusing thing about those scenes is that the data seems to
be flowing at about 9600 bps. A bit of artistic licence, there.

i'm sure they didn't want to spend half the movie waiting for
120cps (or whatever it was). i do recall that i could read the
teletype as fast as it could go without any problem (late 70s)
for the connection we had.

The ASR-33 teletype printed at up to 10cps[*]. (110 baud).

The Decwriter LA-120 supported 30cps (300 baud)
over an accoustic coupler, and up to 120cps (1200 baud)
hardwired.

[*] Not counting the time required to return the carriage to
column 1.

I seem to recall a max of 3 character times, depending on what position
the print head was in. In another life I wrote a TTY driver fir CICS.
My recall may be faulty.

Sounds about right. I remember seeing widely-spaced characters
appearing backwards on the paper if you sent something during a
carriage return.

The Univac terminals I worked with at the time would go blind
for 20 milliseconds during operations involving the whole screen
(e.g. scroll up a line). At 9600 bps this meant you had to
pad such sequences with 20 NULs to avoid lost data.

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | Growth for the sake of
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | growth is the ideology
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | of the cancer cell.
/ \ if you read it the right way. | -- Edward Abbey

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.5
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Sat, 24 Jan 2026 19:45:22 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:

[*] Not counting the time required to return the carriage to
column 1.

I seem to recall a max of 3 character times, depending on what
position the print head was in.

Old DEC hardcopy terminals could finish a carriage-return in the time
it took to process the following line-feed character (assuming there
was one).

BASIC programs also allowed line-feed, carriage-return, null as an
alternative line terminator; the null on the end was obviously to
allow the time for the carriage-return operation to complete.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.5
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Sat, 24 Jan 2026 16:09:38 -0500, songbird wrote:

Scott Lurndal wrote:

songbird <songbird@anthive.com> writes:

Charlie Gibbs wrote:

On 2026-01-24, Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

On 2026-01-23 17:02, Another John wrote:

Does anyone here know when Moore Reed first marketed their
extremely popular (in the UK!) acoustic couplers (telephone
modems). Here's an example:

https://blogs.ethz.ch/its/2022/03/22/it-find-series-1-2022-what-do- you-think-it-could-be/

It's the _date_ I'm interested in. The few sources that I've found >>>>>> date it to 1980; but we have three, and two of them have been dated >>>>>> to the 70s (1970 and 1974). Those dates may well be erroneous, but >>>>>> '1974' was recorded by our founder (now passed on to the great
collection in the sky), and he actually used one of these things.

Thanks for any informed speculations or even facts ;-) [1]

In the movie "War games" appeared an acoustic coupler. I have no
idea about the model. Movie is from 1983. I knew already about those >>>>> devices when I saw the movie.

Photo here: <http://pc-museum.com/046-imsai8080/wargames.htm>

The amusing thing about those scenes is that the data seems to be
flowing at about 9600 bps. A bit of artistic licence, there.

i'm sure they didn't want to spend half the movie waiting for
120cps (or whatever it was). i do recall that i could read the
teletype as fast as it could go without any problem (late 70s) for the >>>connection we had.

The ASR-33 teletype printed at up to 10cps[*]. (110 baud).

The Decwriter LA-120 supported 30cps (300 baud)
over an accoustic coupler, and up to 120cps (1200 baud) hardwired.

[*] Not counting the time required to return the carriage to
column 1.

i'm pretty sure it wasn't 300cps as i recall it being
pretty slow. of course we were playing space wars or star trek. :)

It says 30cps above. 300 baud, but that is symbols/sec (bits in this
case).

--
Using UNIX since v6 (1975)...

Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.5
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

danny burstein <dannyb@panix.com> writes:

I was using acoustic couplers to dial up in 1978, maybe 1977.

I had taken intro to fortran/computers and at end of semester was hired fulltime to rewrite 1401 MPIO in assembler for 360/30. Univ was getting
a 360/67 for tss/360 ... when it arrived, I was hired fulltime
responsible for os/360 (tss/360 didn't come to production)

IBM CSC came out to install (virtual machine) CP/67 (3rd installation
after CSC itself and MIT Lincoln Labs). I then spend a few months
rewriting pathlengths for running OS/360 in virtual machine. Bare
machine test ran 322secs ... initially 856secs (CP67 CPU 534secs). After
a few months I had CP67 CPU down from 534secs to 113secs. I then start rewriting the dispatcher, (dynamic adaptive resource manager/default
fair share policy) scheduler, paging, adding ordered seek queuing (from
FIFO) and mutli-page transfer channel programs (from FIFO and optimized
for transfers/revolution, getting 2301 paging drum from 70-80 4k
transfers/sec to channel transfer peak of 270). Six months after univ
initial install, CSC was giving one week class in LA. I arrive on Sunday afternoon and asked to teach the class, it turns out that the people
that were going to teach it had resigned the Friday before to join one
of the 60s CSC CP67 commercial online spin-offs.

CP/67 arrived with 1052&2741 terminal support including automagic
terminal type (changing terminal type port scanner). Univ. had a bunch
of ASCII/TTY terminals and I add ASCII terminal support to CP/67
integrated with automagic terminal type. I then want to have a single
dail-in number for all terminals ("hunt group"). Didn't quite work,
while IBM controller could change terminal type port scanner, they had
hard wire port speed. This kicks off univ program, build a channel
interface board for Interdata/3 programmed to emulate IBM controller
(but with automatic line speed). It was later upgraded to Interdata/4
for channel interface and cluster of Interdata/3s for ports. Interdata
and later Perkin/Elmer sells as clone IBM controller and four of us get
written up for some part of IBM controller clone business. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interdata https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perkin-Elmer#Computer_Systems_Division

acoustic couplers for tty & 2741 terminal dial-in, 2nd half of the 60s.

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.5
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 23 Jan 2026 at 16:02:30 GMT, "Another John" <lalaw44@hotmail.com> wrote:

Does anyone here know when Moore Reed first marketed their extremely popular (in the UK!) acoustic couplers (telephone modems). Here's an example:

https://blogs.ethz.ch/its/2022/03/22/it-find-series-1-2022-what-do-you-think-it-could-be/

It's the _date_ I'm interested in. The few sources that I've found date it to 1980; but we have three, and two of them have been dated to the 70s (1970 and 1974). Those dates may well be erroneous, but '1974' was recorded by our founder (now passed on to the great collection in the sky), and he actually used one of these things.

Thanks for any informed speculations or even facts ;-) [1]

John
Volunteer Curator, Newcastle University Historical Computing Collection, UK NUHC Catalogue: https://nuhc.ncl.ac.uk/

[1] Among which I do not include Google's AI, because it - too - has picked up
1980 as the date, and _it_ certainly wasn't around then!.

Thanks for all the replies and nostalgia! However I see i wasn't explicit enough: I should have been more brief: I'm interested to know when Moore Reed first made their acoustic couplers (its unique design was a common sight in UK computing).

Anyone have an idea? We (in our Collection are guessing 1970 or 1974), but other collections have 1980 (which I think is rather late).

I haven't been able to nail it yet, and in this world of 'Fast "Facts"' it
gets harder day by day to nail things.

Cheers
John

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.5
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 25 Jan 2026 at 22:39:43 GMT, "Stefan Ram" <Stefan Ram> wrote:

ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) wrote or quoted:

. . .
|Moore Reed TC301M
. . .
|The Serial number of this modem is 74164.
|This may indicate a year of 1974.
. . .
World-Wide Web.

Then I saw an ad from 1977 (looks as if one used item was
offered in 1977), and there is this entry in the "Historisches
Museum Basel" "Jahresbericht 2011" museum report from 2011:

|Telefonmodem Moore Reed Universal
|Acoustic Coupler
|Basel, um 1970
|Holz, Metall, Kunststoff
|H. 14 cm, B. 30 cm, T. 23,5 cm
|Geschenk Kurt Paulus, Grenzach-Wyhlen
|2011.154.

, translated into English:

|Telephone Modem Moore Reed Universal
|Acoustic Coupler
|Basel, around 1970
|Wood, metal, plastic
|H. 14 cm, W. 30 cm, D. 23.5 cm
|Gift of Kurt Paulus, Grenzach-Wyhlen
|2011.154.

.

Thanks Stefan - that's useful!

AJ

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