Got into them while on my 486DX/66 with a 2400 baud modem. Started off on your run-of-the-mill type sites with Tradewars and the like, then eventually found our way to the "elite" local bulletin boards (hacking/phreaking/warez).
From there those guys taught me the ins-and-outs of wardialing for PBX codes and the like -- used for dialing long-distance DWANGO servers to play Doom 2 multiplayer and calling long-distance nationally known "elite" BBS's (Ghost Ship probably being the most well known).
That led to "Internet In a Box", which led to the ridiculous amount of illegal **** that got thrown around AOL (pre AOHell days). Was actually probably one of the first 50 or so people to use the actual "internet" through AOL with a hacked winsock.dll. By the time everything shifted from BBS -> AOL -> internet I was co-running one of the bigger courier group FTP distro sites, before I lost interest and started drinking beer, chasing girls and trying to fail out of A&M with Diggity.
If you have a chance, check out "BBS: The Documentary" movie that is floating around. If you were in the "scene' during the 80's-90's, you'll see a lot of familiar screen-names in interviews -- and yeah, those guys look about how you figure they look.
Fun times -- it was basically the dark web before the dark web existed.