X2 had just come out, and AOL (among others) had been advertising the new connection speeds. Didn't do me much good with my external 9600 baud modem. My mother

X2 had just come out, and AOL (among others) had been advertising the new connection speeds. Didn't do me much good with my external 9600 baud modem. My mother has a friend who was an engineer at US Robotics at that time. I must've been 11 or 12. I told him how I loved going online, and he found out about my ancient modem, and said he was going to send me an upgrade. I was expecting a used 28.8 or even 14.4, but a few weeks go by and package comes. I come home from school and a shrink wrapped 56k X2 Sportster is sitting on my counter. The difference was incredible. Connecting at 5x the speeds I used to get was life changing. I used that modem for at least seven years before broadband came along.