Fidonet: Technology, Use, Tools, and History (1993)

Even if you were a "point" (an endpoint assigned to the node) you still had to set up the software and (in the mid-to-late 90s at least) set up a modem to call your node to upload/download. And sometimes you had to set up repeated dialing until you got through because the node could be busy (some nodes doubled as BBSs), or connection could be bad and it'd had to retry etc. Wasn't an easy task, so it served as a sort of a filter so that most people on there were geeks.

Later on of course some nodes started distributing over the Internet so setting up a node became much easier (and I think there was a way for the node to allow multiple users read/write without even setting up a node/point at all).

I feel like polling mail 30+ years ago on ISDN + zipped mail file from my fido net node was faster than IMAP on my 1 gbit connection now.

5:7211/1.27 here - though I think this address is long long gone. I'm gobsmacked that I can remember it. :-)

We got fidonet in Zimbabwe in the early 1990s. It was utterly revolutionary for us - more than the internet that came later really. For the first time we could communicate with my two brothers overseas without paying for extremely exorbitant international telephone calls that lasted a couple of minutes at best.

Our modem was 2400bps (8-N-1 IIRC). We used the zmodem protocol. It was after I learned about computers but I learned a HUGE amount from this about protocols etc. Our phone system was terrible so error correction etc were of great importance. Working out how to dial slowly was also important for our terrible phone exchanges.

It let me keep in touch with my pal, K, who emigrated to South Africa and as a result he ended up sending me 21 1.2MB floppy disks with SLS Linux on them and kernel 0.99 (I think). The journey began! :-)

I have very fond memories of fidonet: discussions, friends made, parties held. I wish i was back there :)

Sysop?