using a friend's Prodigy account and a local dialup BBS internet gateway in the early days
One of my fondest memories is purchasing a 14400 on the USRobotics SysOp program. What a bargain at nearly $800! There was nothing like spending an entire day downloading the latest game in 24 parts just so others could leech it from your BBS and thinking the advent of the bi-directional protocol was the holy grail. Those were teh days! :)