27th February 2008, 11:48 PM
The oldest used those speakers and microphones, but after that modems don't have a single instance from start to finish in which the data has to be transferred via sound waves. It can all be converted into sound (as in that dial-up sound and what you hear if you pick up the hook), but without a speaker it's all electrical impulses.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)