Pre-internet breakthrough, circa 1991 I bought a friends 2400 baud modem. I lived in Hong Kong, local telephone calls were free so BBSes were pretty widespread.

Pre-internet breakthrough, circa 1991 I bought a friends 2400 baud modem. I lived in Hong Kong, local telephone calls were free so BBSes were pretty widespread. I vividly remember downloading my first nude picture (I hesitate to call it porn, it was pretty tasteful compared to what you can find these days). It was pre-JPEG so think it was an uncompressed bitmap, I waited at least an hour for it to download 1 line at a time. It was tortuous, but ultimately satisfying. As a 13 year old boy this helped cement my love of computers. As a pragmatist, it gave me the courage to buy a magazine so not to have to wait 1 hr / picture.