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

specialist

Appreciate this share. Whenever I hear about this new fangled AT protocol all the kids are jazzed about, I get all wistful for the BBS era. FidoNet & PC-Relay were pretty fanfastic. For the time, obv. Source: Was sysadmin for a hub.

numbsafari

This is how I grew up. Using fidonet via my local RPGA group.

pgrote

Respected the process for getting on Fidonet. You had to figure it out, configure it properly and prove you were ready to go before you got a node number. No hand holding. Frontdoor and national mail hour.

NuSkooler

For those interested, FidoNet and "Alt nets" such as fsxNet are still going and active!

sedatk

There was a FidoNet clone in Turkey called HitNet (short for “Hi Türkiye Net”). Its node addresses were like “8:103/119”. İ developed a Netmail server for Hitnet called HitBase in 1995 or so. It allowed people to discover others around their city to meet. Possibly the earliest thing that resembles Facebook. Similarly, it was a privacy nightmare too, luckily short-lived. HitNet introduced me to great people some of whom I still see today. It was such a tight-knit friendly community. The advent of Internet killed it but some communities are still active on other platforms.

egorfine

2:463/1161 here. Nostalgia is strong with this one.

dsrtslnd23

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.

tycoon666

Best social network in history!

t43562

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! :-)

ck2

one thing I distinctly remember is that when simultaneous two-way Zmodem transfers came out replacing Ymodem, it absolutely blew my mind (previously all transfers, Xmodem/Ymodem, were one-way with CRC checks on each block slowing things down)

yummybear

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

drob518

Blast from the past.

tobi_bsf

Was a great time, completely free of spam, ai slop and mostly even political stuff. the world is really developing backwards.

nickdothutton

I too remember. Where is the "FidoNet" of today?

washadjeffmad

Can't hear Fidonet without recommending BBS: The Documentary (2005) youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7nj3G6Jpv2G6Gp6NvN1kUtQuW8QshBWE

LouisvilleGeek

Amiga 500 + Fidonet brings back such fond memories.

kylemaxwell

This was my first exposure to an internet (as opposed to the Internet), via BBSs, when I was a teenager. I keep thinking we should bring the term "sysop" back, in fact. Nostalgia may be a form of depression, I've been told, but a little touch of it once in a while is good for the soul.

ex-aws-dude

Too young to have used it but I watched the BBS documentary recently and what surprised me was how much stuff was already possible pre-internet A lot of stuff I would typically associate with the internet like pirating, forums, mail, large scale multiplayer games actually predates it

biodiesel

:inbound host WAN f6.n105.z1.fidonet.org