I was 12 or 13 when I found a 2400 baud modem in my neighbor's attic while babysitting their kids and playing hide and seek, the remnant of an automative repair

I was 12 or 13 when I found a 2400 baud modem in my neighbor's attic while babysitting their kids and playing hide and seek, the remnant of an automative repair business that had failed. When the kids' mom got home she saw my interest and said I could have it, but I still had to track down the right cable (a DB25 if I remember correctly) and then to figure out how to use it (since modems varied widely in the commands they supported and the settings needed to talk to them successfully). The first BBS numbers I found were in the listing in the back of Computer User magazine. The Seattle boards I still remember are RaT CiTY (24-666-47), Jesus on Ecstasy, the Southern Cross, and the Bat Kave. At 13 I didn't know what long distance was and so ended up with a $400 phone bill. I'm sure I got grounded for that for a while. One of the things I remember most poignantly is that you had a finite number of minutes (and actions, in the various door games like Barren Realms Elite, Solar Realms Elite, Legend of the Red Dragon, and Usurper) so that no one person could monopolize the 1 or 2 phone lines most BBSes had for long periods of time. That made the time spent online feel important, and I remember strategizing so that I could reply to messages, check for new files, and play the doors I liked within the time allowed.