And the announcement was made in such a happy tone, as if you’d just received a personal letter in your actual mailbox. It was a novelty, and fun back then...
I also recall, maybe in 1993 (?), going to the International Automobile Show in San Francisco with a good friend. One of the carmakers (maybe BMW?) had a display with audio: the audio was a recording of the screechy screaming buzzing howl a modem used to produce when connecting via dial-up. I suppose the idea was to underscore how ‘cutting edge’ they were... (That was also the year of the cupholder. Cars suddenly had them everywhere. A Plymouth van of some kind won, with I think 14 cupholders...)
What’s amazing is it took them that long to put a simple cupholder in a car as standard. I remember buying the ones that hung off your window for many years in the 70’s and 80’s.
The European cars were always 10 years ahead of the American cars in cool features, like folding rear seats, etc.