From my archives... this is what the command center of a mid-1990s dialup ISP looked like.

Later iterations would be more advanced, but this is how it started. A natural progression and leap of faith from the multi-line BBS it replaced.

#retrocomputing

@autumn stacks of USR Couriers 😍
@polpo I know... it was beautiful turning off the overhead lights and sitting in the center of that room, with the flickering of the lights on each of the hundreds of modems around me speaking to one person's adventure out on the wider Internet.

@autumn @polpo

This is making me so nostalgic for the first days of our little ISP. Looks very different and yet the same. Even the fans blowing onto the shelves of modems to keep them cooler! We had put ours on metal rack shelving in the middle of the room so the air could circulate more freely.

Are the 3 chassis on the desk the terminal servers for the modems? I can't make out the logo or brand, and I no longer remember what we were using at this stage.