How things have changed. When my spouse and I lived in different cities for several months, we stayed in touch thanks to...

America Online!

It turns out AOL was the only service that allowed dial up access in two different places without paying for two accounts. That was around 1993. And of course we didn't want to rack up long-distance phone bills. It was before AOL even allowed access to the Web.

I recently heard the "you've got mail" sound from AOL and it really triggered some good, deep nostalgia.