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History of Fidonet (1993)

olografix.org

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Re: History of Fidonet (1993)

#41

Post by EricE »

throw0101a wrote: post #10
magoon wrote: post #8

Running a FidoNet-connected BBS meant I had direct access to read every EchoMail group I could subscribe my BBS to. At the time it was a great source of real, insightful written conversation. Because the readers were text-based, and it was all on my hard drive, I could consume postings at such great speed. (spacebar, spacebar, spacebar...) The memories.

> Because the readers were text-based, and it was all on my hard drive, I could consume postings at such great speed. You didn't have to run a BBS to do this. Using an offline mail reader like Blue Wave [1] and downloading QWK files [2] allowed anyone to do it—and helped keep the lines, as downloading was (relatively) quick compared to reading 'online'. I initially got "on" Usenet by downloading SOUP files from a loc…

Oh how I wished online forums supported QWK or OLX for offline reading. Most online forum software are an abomination of animations, clicks and excessive waiting for crap to load.

Re: History of Fidonet (1993)

#42

Post by EricE »

Net209 - those were the days. Of course having a local call to the Western Star didn't hurt either ;-)

Sysop meetings at Shakey's Pizza - nothing beats in person meet ups!

EDIT: It just dawned on me - how amazing is it that now that long distance calls are generally free (at least here in the US) that lots of people don't get the significance of "local call". What at time.

Re: History of Fidonet (1993)

#43

Post by EricE »

ananonymoususer wrote: post #40
berbec wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Courier HST or death

Couriers were great, but not as good as Hayes. Of course the Hayes modems cost twice as much so everyone bought the USR modems instead.

Pshaw - I still have my Supra 14.4, 28.8 and 56 modems. Use 'em to feed fax servers since that's about the only real use for modems still. Stacked on top of each other with their displays rotating... the memories!

Re: History of Fidonet (1993)

#44

Post by 8bitsrule »

DonHopkins wrote: post #11
NelsonMinar wrote: post #6

After FidoNet Tom Jennings has gone on to have a long and fascinating career mixing art and technology, with a good side dose of car hacking and queer activism. His current website is at http://sr-ix.com/

Indeed! It's hard to describe how influential and wide-ranging his career has been, but I'll try: Besides pioneering FidoNet, Tom Jennings also started another early ISP in 1992 originally running out of John Gilmore's basement in San Francisco called TLG: The Little Garden, named after a Chinese food restaurant in Palo Alto that was popular with techies: https://ask.metafilter.com/266181/Ill-take-Palo-Alto-in-the-..…

Wow, thanks! Earlier FIDO stories never mentioned that Tom's later life was as inventive as Fidonet. WP's bio also notes that he 'built Wired magazine's first internet presence, wrote the portable BIOS that led to Phoenix Technologies BIOS' and is currently on the faculty at Calarts in L.A.

Re: History of Fidonet (1993)

#45

Post by sedachv »

EricE wrote: post #41
throw0101a wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because the readers were text-based, and it was all on my hard drive, I could consume postings at such great speed. You didn't have to run a BBS to do this. Using an offline mail reader like Blue Wave [1] and downloading QWK files [2] allowed anyone to do it—and helped keep the lines, as downloading was (relatively) quick compared to reading 'online'. I initially got "on" Usenet by downloading SOUP files from a loc…

Oh how I wished online forums supported QWK or OLX for offline reading. Most online forum software are an abomination of animations, clicks and excessive waiting for crap to load.

https://github.com/CyberShadow/DFeed the forum software behind https://forum.dlang.org/ offers NNTP feeds. More web forum software should do that.

Re: History of Fidonet (1993)

#46

Post by azinman2 »

dleslie wrote: post #38
richard_todd wrote: post #15

It was chilling to read the last section (starting “This was pretty cool ... for a while ...“). The network got big enough that people who “had nothing to do with the design, creation or maintenance of the FidoNet software” started asserting control over how the project was run, and forming committees. Shortly after, it sounds like political struggles led to forks and disillusioned members. When I think about all the…

Reminds me of Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy: > In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the benefit of the bureaucracy itself always get in control and those dedicated to the goals the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have less and less influence, and sometimes are eliminated entirely.

Sounds a lot like US government politics today, sadly.

Re: History of Fidonet (1993)

#47

Post by azinman2 »

EricE wrote: post #43
ananonymoususer wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couriers were great, but not as good as Hayes. Of course the Hayes modems cost twice as much so everyone bought the USR modems instead.

Pshaw - I still have my Supra 14.4, 28.8 and 56 modems. Use 'em to feed fax servers since that's about the only real use for modems still. Stacked on top of each other with their displays rotating... the memories!

Don’t forget US Robotics we’re really the kings, always faster with their not-yet-standards.

Meanwhile I was doing pretty well with my Spectrum Peripherals 14.4k before I got my fancy Zoom 56k...

Re: History of Fidonet (1993)

#48

Post by throw0101a »

BeetleB wrote: post #17
throw0101a wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because the readers were text-based, and it was all on my hard drive, I could consume postings at such great speed. You didn't have to run a BBS to do this. Using an offline mail reader like Blue Wave [1] and downloading QWK files [2] allowed anyone to do it—and helped keep the lines, as downloading was (relatively) quick compared to reading 'online'. I initially got "on" Usenet by downloading SOUP files from a loc…

Those offline mail readers were awesome - I preferred OLX. In fact, when I finally got email, I wrote a QB program to convert my inbox to QWK format. I would then use OLX to read/reply to emails. I don't recall, but I probably used OLX's Save As to store my replies to text files which I then uploaded to my online mail server. I used OLX for emails until at least 1999.

> I used OLX for emails until at least 1999.

Seems you can still get it:

* http://www.santronics.com/products/olx/index.php

Re: History of Fidonet (1993)

#49

Post by azinman2 »

Nostalgia dialed to 11 for me (pun intended). I missed these “simpler times,” where the technology world was filled with those who built and cared about it, filled with blind optimism. I grew up in SF and started attending 2600 meetings with Adrian Lamo at age 12 (RIP). It’s unbelievable looking back on all of this how accepting adults were of my youth and were so willing to chat with me and give me equipment, etc despite my young age. I first was on BBSes about age 7!

Now the same people who used to make fun of me for my computer interests are working for Twitter. How the world changes once there’s money and mainstream success in something. I can’t help but feel slightly bitter about it, especially as I see all of the negativity now spreading across technology what with the great firewall, misinformation, and all.

Re: History of Fidonet (1993)

#50

Post by alor »

I've always struggled to understand how Fidonet (and BBSes) was different to Usenet.

From what I gathered, Usenet was a decentralised network from the start, whereas BBSes were distinct communities and Fidonet was a solution to connect these communities together. I believe Usenet also runs on TCP/IP, unlike BBSes which you dialed into.

Can anyone shed some light on the above?

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