I struggled over the issue of what it means to be an Australian modem when I first started the list and had a bit of a stab at qualifying it in my original post. I would consider the Datacraft Quadcrafts to qualify on two fronts:
- rebadging for the Australian market, especially if that badge is exclusive to Australia
- you nominated it. A modem that is significant to an Australian is good enough for me
More generally, the quality of “Australianess” is something that the ACMS has had to consider. Have a look at Collection Guidelines on page 3 of the ACMS newsletter from December 2020: ACMS Newsletter, December 2020 edition.
I recently found a boxed modem amongst a nature strip household contents dump. Besides the modem were a bunch of the same textbooks I used in high school - the dumper and I were contemporaries. The prominent “Australia” on the box got my attention but I would describe it as a modem with an Australian story.
It’s a 56k, external and full modem from very early 2000’s and it’s tiny (11x7x2.5cm). I won’t add it to the list but here’s a couple of photos:
