Prodigy at 11 Years Old
Whenever I tell people my family started using the internet in 1994 they think I'm a lying. The truth is my best friends Kevin and Jason McEwen moved from Iowa to Baltimore the summer after fourth grade and I figured that was the end. I didn't have the patience to write a letter and my family at that point had not vacationed once on the east coast. So I figured I'd never hear from them or see them again. Then my dad hooked our PC into a 1200 bps modem and fired up Prodigy and Compuserve. The only thing I remember about Compuserve is it looked like a giant chat room, and for all I know that is what it was. I think I logged into it once and left it alone. Prodigy was where the real action was. My Dad told me I could write my friends digital letters, send it off, and hear back from them in minutes, the only catch was I could only send 30 emails a month. I guess 31 emails would melt their servers or something. It was awesome. The McEwens and I emailed back and forth a coupl...