After my mom kicked me out I went to live with my grandparents. They bought me a c-128d and a 1200 baud modem. Little did they know I had no concept of hourly connection fees or phone billing. It was amazing until they got the first $200 bill from Q-Link and $400 from the phone company. My grandpa was so pissed he kicked me out and fortunately my dad took me in. It was about 7 years before he talked to me again, and it was only a terse, stiff conversation on the phone when he called to talk to my mom. He died not long after. He grew up poor and couldn't get over it. I still appreciate them taking me in. I wouldn't be where I'm at today without them buying me that computer system.

There was a big list of all the BBSes in Australia, and over the weekend I dialled everyone of those. I was a kid, and didn’t realise interstate was billed per the minute.

… my heart sank when the bill was over $500 AUD, and my dad picked up the helpless US Robotics 14.4Kbps modem and threw it at the brick wall, shattering into little pieces along with my heart.

… so anyway, that’s when a friend started sleeping over, bringing his modem. Though one time he forgot his power supply and I found one that fit - ended up smelling burning plastic only to see that the top of his modem had melted but the magic smoke was filling it like a balloon!! Luckily, once it popped, the modem continued to work lol