@molly0xfff My good old daze of the Internet were pre-web, which is why I said before 1995 (when it seemed to me everyone discovered WWW and the signal:noise ratio dropped).
It was hard work then, but I always went back for more.
I had to order a 9-pin plug and solder my first modem cable, and that meant a friend dictating pin numbers on a rotary dial phone--like a savage