In the 80s I was in Lexington, Ky and got my first modem (1200 baud). That started me on the path to getting connected to others in the computer scene there. Just starting out it was hard to know where to call into but fortunately someone gave me a number to one BBS and that led to the other local ones (my parents wouldn't allow me to do long distance calls so I was limited to local BBSes).

Lexington had an interesting mix of BBS systems. Transylvania University had a system that was open to non-students and had 3-4 incoming lines so you could do real time chat (!) unless of course someone improperly disconnected (dang call waiting) which would cause that line to hang for 30-60 minutes IIRC until it timed out.

Also another great BBS in Lexington was one running Pyroto Mountain where you're a wizard and there are different chat levels depending on your wizard level. Going "up" the mountain required answering trivia questions. To this day a lot of trivia still in my head is from those early Pyroto Mountain days.

I eventually moved to a 9600 baud (Hayes brand!) and then a 28.8k and then 56k modem. Zipping at a 1gig connection at home (always on - no call waiting!) is really quite amazing to experience in just 40-ish years.