My first Compuserve connections were made with an "Acoustic Coupler"; the father of todays direct connect modems. You dialed up the computer manually and when you heard the 'beep' you placed the telephone receiver in the rubber cups of the coupler. I was using a DEC PDP11-03, my first home computer. It was that or an Apple in those days before IBM started the PC revolution.

My earliest experiences with on-line computers were with General Electric Computer Dept in Phoenix where we worked with the people at Dartmouth College in developing 'Dartmouth BASIC', the first programming language for The Rest of Us. Our terminals were Teletypes in those days (1960's) and ran at the standard teleprinter speed of 110 baud <g>.