From the UK: I was about 15, in 1993, when I managed to convince my parents to buy me a modem. I used to use it out of hours when phone calls were cheaper. Nev

From the UK: I was about 15, in 1993, when I managed to convince my parents to buy me a modem. I used to use it out of hours when phone calls were cheaper. Nevertheless, I think I managed to rack up a £200 phone bill in the first month or so. Eventually I started running my own BBS, which would only become available at 8pm and come offline at 8am. If I remember correctly, I called it "The Graveyard". I had a steady stream of callers on the single line that it shared with the home phone. I would often chat to them via "Sysop Chat" whilst simultaneously talking to friends nearby over CB radio. When I wasn't doing that, I was calling into all sorts of odd places - hacker boards (one of which I was thrown off for asking if there was a non-colour version, "l4mer", me on my Commodore PC20-III) - some cyberpunk boards (including the CyberCafe in London), and "Ooh!", on which I remember being repeatedly propositioned on various insalubrious chat groups, when I wasn't reading posts about Babylon 5 on Fidonet. On another I learned about raves happening vaguely nearby. The whole thing was a wonderful, glorious chaotic mess. It felt like exploring a mysterious universe which was growing and mutating every day, full of infinite possibilities, and of course it was much better than what we have these days.