I started out with British Telecom's Prestel, moved on to a VAX-based BBS that all the kids in my town had accounts on, moved on to local Wildcat! BBSs and ended up on a telnet-based BBS (which has been around since before JANET supported TCP/IP) and I'm still there. I did meet my wife online, but not on a BBS (and not on news, and not on the web).