Re:What hacking AOL taught a generation of programmers
by mikepurvis on Tuesday April 12, 2022 @01:19PM
(#31005581)
My story was being a 10 year old in the mid-90s and dialing up the Apogee BBS using a number displayed in some shareware game's splashscreen. Turns out that hour-long call to Garland Texas (from Toronto) resulted in a really hefty phone bill, which I was asked to help out with since I had a paper route at the time.
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Re:What hacking AOL taught a generation of programmers
by wolrah on Tuesday April 12, 2022 @07:44PM
(#31009582)
I learned a similar lesson about the difference between LATAs and area codes around the time AOL went to unlimited.
All of the Toledo numbers were constantly busy, so I tried other "local" numbers and ended up discovering that the Findlay number would usually answer. I set that as the default and thought nothing more of it, while all of us used it for hours a day.
The phone bill that arrived at the end of the month was quite large.