And you also lost the use of the modem port - it wouldn't work and in fact on machines that shipped with a modem, there was a plastic plug covering the modem port to prevent you from using it. What a lot of people used to do to speed these machines up was to buy a proper hardware based external serial modem, pull the CS modem card and the plug covering the modem port, and plug in the external modem.

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Yes, that's completely true. My 5215 does not have a modem port because of the Global Fax modem that was installed on it instead (which sucks, because the Global Fax is rated at 28k, while my old USRobotics external modem, which requires to be hooked up to either the printer port, or the modem port, is rated at 56k). I could use the USRobotics one, but I no longer have an AOL account (got rid of it last week in favour of Rogers Hi-Speed), and I would not be able to print out anything as the printer port would be utilized by the modem.

I first got dialup Internet at home in 1998 and had it all the way up until 2009 when my finances finally permit me to upgrade to 3G broadband (ADSL isn't available where my parents live), honestly it was like going from a Daihatsu Charade to a Bugatti Veyron.

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My grandfather started the Internet craze in our family when he purchased an Internet plan from Bell back in 1997. I remember on my Win 3.1 desktop using Netscape Communicator as my browser, which was replaced by Internet Explorer when I received my Win 98 computer (refurbished, of course) in 1999.

When my mom purchased her now-deceased HP desktop in 2003, she went with AOL dial-up, and stuck with them until last week after having to purchase a new computer that was not "56k modem friendly."

Bottom line- we've used dial-up for too long. It's great to finally have Hi-Speed, and to have the main phone line unoccupied simultaneously.