I used to run a 3-node BBS when I was a kid, so I have very fond memories of a rather geeky hobby that helped start my professional career.
I used Wantree's RemoteAccess on the back of FrontDoor. For the life of me I can't remember which FOSSIL driver I used, but I suspect it was BNU rather than X00.
I'm trying to recall what modems I used. (They were all internal 8-bit ISA cards). Later on in my professional career I used MultiTech MultiModemII modems a lot as they will negotiate with absolutely anything!