dial-up experiences (was Re: question aaout ISP's)

I didn't miss the 300 baud era. I remember my first modem was a "direct connect" 300bps model sold by radio shack. It had an "answer or originate" switch, along with a big red button that said "Connect." Push the button, carrier was activated. No Hayes command set, no ATDT, no autodialing, nothing. You needed to dial manually, listen for carrier, push the button, and hang up. I used a 4th-hand pulse phone, because that's all my parents had to give me. It connected to my TRS-80 Color Computer II, which had 16k of ram. The TRS80 only had 32 columns, where the Commodore-64 and PC's had 40 at the time. I dealt with half-wrapped lines for years. So I dialed upwards of 100 BBS's in Pittsburgh, all thanks to unlimited metro calling, the package Bell Atlantic offered at the time. I knew every exchange in the 412 area code, where it was located, and whether I could call it for "free." This was early 80's. Compuserve offered trial accounts which you could get via magazines, from other BBS's, etc. I remember the userid's were always 6 (maybe 7?) digits, and the default passwords were two words separated by a symbol. Like, "wolf-rhyme" or "phone!warsaw" etc. 300 baud was actually fast enough for the majority of what I did for at least a couple years. 1200 baud was state of the art -- but many people still connected at 300 baud. When I later upgraded to an Amiga 500, I also got a 2400 baud modem which was lightning by comparison. But then the files got bigger.... I later got a 14.4/16.8k (dual standard, Courier and HST, anyone remember these?) which was the BOMB --- no one had anything faster in the early 90's. And then came K56flex and x2, competing standards........ I am a product of the 80's -- got interested in computers and modems right when WarGames came out, along with Whiz Kids, if anyone knows that show. You'll never guess what I did during my teenage(and later) years? :) Keith