[GH85Carrera]

In 1985 I upgraded to my Commodore 64 from my Commodore Vic-16. I paid several hundred dollars for a 300 baud modem that was not even auto dial. Back in those days a modem user was supposed to get permission from AT&T and get a business line to hook any equipment to the phone system. AT&T was the phone company and the ONLY phone company. I could not even own my phone, I had to rent it monthly from AT&T.

Anyway I set up a Compuserve account and logged in. At 300 baud the text (no graphics at all) would scroll across at a pace you could read as it came in. Up comes a menu and you make your selection with the keyboard. There was a charge by the minute for access.

I poked around and finally decided to order some Livi Jeans. At the end of the month I saw the charge to Compuserve for the connect time and it was over 30 bucks. I killed my account right then.

The jeans came in and were just what I wanted. I have been shopping on-line since 1985. Amazon.com is many orders of magnitude better than the old ways.

Edit: Whoops, my memory was off. Change 1983 to 1985. I remember the store I bought my modem at was playing MTV back when MTV played music. The song "Money for Nothing" by Dire Straits was on and that was released in 1985.