I used BBSes with my Amiga uh, ages ago. I was in highschool I think. BBS games like Legend of the Red Dragon, TradeWars, The Pit and Hack N Slash were The Shit.
Man, LoRD was a good game. Barren Realms Earth was fun, too. I also used to play a game called VGA Planets - you had to email your turn to the host, as would all the other players, then the host would email you back a file to load that would show all the other players moves, etc. A RISK-like game, in space.
I got Prodigy when I was 12 or so, in 1993, (I don't remember using Prodigy a whole lot, though), when I got my first modern computer, a Gateway 2000. It was a 486, had a 66Mhz processor, 4Mb of RAM, and something like 200Mb hard drive, along with a 9600 baud modem. I BBS'd a bit, but it wasn't until 1994 that I really started getting into it, 'cause we moved back to Chicago and there were many more options out there. The Lake County Radio Group BBS was the one I spent the most time on, mostly playing games and using the message boards, but also downloading stuff and trying to get into ANSI. When I turned 16, (1996), I asked for, and received, a 28.8bps modem for my birthday. It was awesome. Sometime around then the family decided to sign up for AOL. We had version 1.5. I still have the same screen name for AIM, which was a shortened version of the handle I used for all the BBSs I frequented, and my parents still (unbelievably) use AOL.
memories