That’s true, and I should have been less absolute in my language. However all of those activities were niche and actively scary sounding to the ‘normies’ (and to a lesser extent still are)
I actually did find “warez” on BBSs before I had Internet access. But I really think even finding BBS numbers in the back of a magazine and trying them out put me outside most computer users of the time.
Bulletin boards existed. Hacker parties existed. You made contacts and kept in touch. You mailed discs to each other.
We communicated before the internet.
That’s true, and I should have been less absolute in my language. However all of those activities were niche and actively scary sounding to the ‘normies’ (and to a lesser extent still are)
I actually did find “warez” on BBSs before I had Internet access. But I really think even finding BBS numbers in the back of a magazine and trying them out put me outside most computer users of the time.