Of course when I were a lad, we had real computers (a 33MHz 486) and real operating systems like Windows 3.11...

How to Install a Modem in 33 Easy Steps

1. Waste several hours searching manuals to find the maximum speed supported by your PC's serial port.
2. Give up and decide it is probably only 9600 baud. Therefore you need an internal modem.
3. Remove the case from your PC just to make sure you can and marvel at the tangle of ribbon cables thus revealed, noting how the processor is trapped behind the drives where it is safe from theft and upgrade alike.
4. Buy a 28800 baud internal modem.
5. Change the jumpers to make it act as COM4, snapping finger nails in the process.
6. Choose the slot between the sound card and the graphics card (the only one out the four free ISA slots not blocked by cables) and discover that the plate covering the rear of the slot does not unscrew - it has to be snapped off.
7. Bend the plate back and forward until it snaps, only then discovering that it was hitting a transistor on the mother board every time it was bent back.
8. Try to insert the modem and discover that there is not enough clearance between the adjacent cards.
9. Choose the bottom slot (a waste of a VLB slot but with no cards anywhere near it) and snap off the cover.
10. Note the cunning way in which the mother board is mounted off centre so that there is too little space between the back of the computer and the end of the bottom slot.
11. Discover that the mother board is jammed solid.
12. Put some sticky tape over the useless hole in the back of the computer.
13. Unscrew the graphics card so that it sags down allowing the modem to slip into the slot you had originally selected.
14. Reassemble and test the computer discovering that the modem has appeared as COM3.
15. Dismantle the computer again and verify that the jumpers are correct for COM4.
16. Boot the machine and discover that the modem is still COM3.
17. Do not take the modem back to the shop as that is admitting DEFEAT. The internet has no space for those who admit defeat.
18. Change the jumpers to make the modem COM3.
19. Discover that Windows no longer recognises the mouse.
20. Search the manual and try using 'interrupt sharing' but note the accuracy of the warning that this is not guaranteed to work.
21. Change the modem to be COM2.
22. Boot the machine and verify that the modem is now present, clashing with the existing COM2. All outgoing data seems correct but every hundredth incoming character is garbage.
23. Check the relavent manual (a single sheet of paper for the multifunction IO card) and discover that COM2 is disabled by changing a jumper at the back of the card behind all the cables.
24. Note the cunning way in which the CDROM cable wraps round the IO card preventing it from being removed.
25. Remove the sound card carefully teasing the CDROM lead out of the empty drive bay where it had been thoughfully stuffed.
26. Pause part way through this process to disconnect the lead to the disk access light which it goes the wrong side of the CDROM lead.
27. Leave the sound card dangling from the CDROM lead
28. Remove the IO card remembering to disconnect the floppy disk cable, the hard disk cable and the extra back plate carrying the serial port and the game port.
29. Dissable COM2 and reassemble the machine (see steps 25 to 28 in reverse order)
30. Be disconcerted by the messages 'Cannot find floppy controller', 'Cannot find hard disk controller'.
31. PANIC.
32. Discover that the IO card was not pushed all the way in.
33. Boot your machine and join the information superhighway, rejoicing your new status as hardware expert.