It was really fun way to communicate as a nerdy high schooler. One of my best friends was varsity football player, a jock who was a closeted nerd. We would bo

It was really fun way to communicate as a nerdy high schooler. One of my best friends was varsity football player, a jock who was a closeted nerd. We would both go home to our own houses at lunch time and dial up the local BBS and chat with each other about (what else?) BBSes. My parents were very anti-computer at the time because I spent so much time on it and they would never let me spend any of the money I earned at my busboy job on computer parts so I had to be sneaky about it. I eventually pilfered the $150 to get a Zoom 14.4Kbps modem and me and my buddy took his car to CompUSA and bought modems on the sly. I had to pull mine out of the packaging and ditch the box and sneak it home in my backpack so my folks wouldn't see, then be sure to mute the modem speaker so they wouldn't notice the changed negotiation tones. It seems so ridiculous now: computers became my meal ticket in a very big way and I'm eternally grateful that I had the balls to secretly buy that modem.