Link The Home Shop machinist & Machinist's Workshop BBS - FAQ home shop machinist discussion...
These first online games used a bulletin board system, also known as a BBS.
If you had a BBS server, the number of phone lines you had was the maximum number of users that could be on at one time.
One seeker posted an experience to a Dallas area BBS (the local BBS no longer exists) in the late 1980s that she'd spent a great deal of time in past life research because of her claustrophobia.
The Internet was just a series of BBS boards in those days, but soap opera fans particularly those on college campuses found ways to begin connecting to each other.