In my university days I used this setup, via the school's then brand-new PBX and the built-in serial port in the phone in my dorm room, to connect to the univer

In my university days I used this setup, via the school's then brand-new PBX and the built-in serial port in the phone in my dorm room, to connect to the university VAX. The 9600bps speed was, shall we put it, leisurely, but still a major improvement over the original Minitel's 1200/75. Ethernet was far from widespread in the early 90s, certainly not all the way to the dorms.