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

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.

Circa 1985, I ran a BBS for my computer club and when a Fidonet feature was offered in the software I activated it and figured out how to connect to a larger relay BBS in my area code. It was really magical in those toll-call days to see messages that had relayed across the entire country in just a couple days - entirely FOR FREE. It was like a dial-up modem Pony Express! This was especially amazing for us 8-bit micro hobbyists in the early and mid-80s who were scratching out an isolated existence in the wild wastelands of ad hoc user's groups and BBS' far beyond the gated walls of universities, government and big corp IT depts - we'd never even seen early Usenet!

I lived near Los Angeles at the time and still remember meeting some guys in New York City entirely via free FidoNet messages. A few months later, for other reasons, I happened to make my first ever trip to New York and actually met up with those Fidonet friends and hung out with them. Good times.

I was a point of two local bbses, my setup was Binkley Term as mailer, GoldEd as editor, plus a third tool, the tosser, whose name I cannot remember now. Everything running on OS/2 Warp.

It is the truth. The fact that it took some effort to get on there was a great filter of people.

I sometimes think there will be a renaissance for Fidonet-like networks, when our politicians have banned encryption, implemented complete surveillance and generally destroyed the internet.

It would be a great irony, if we then went back to the networks of our childhood in order to be free.

I guess the other option might be i2p or something similar, but that is probably too easily accessible to remain free when the authoritarians in power lock down the internet.

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

For anyone that wants to experience fidonet or bbses, I can recommend the Synchronet client and their BBS List. They are very up to date. https://www.synchro.net/sbbslist.html

BBSes with fidonet are still available to connect to today (see the Network column in the previously linked list).

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

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 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.

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

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.

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

Can't hear Fidonet without recommending BBS: The Documentary (2005)

youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7nj3G6Jpv2G6Gp6NvN1kUtQuW8QshBWE

I had a Fidonet connection for a while, and I also was a UUCP node for a couple of years. That was cool, getting Usenet news delivered over a 2400 baud modem.

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.

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

It is hard today to grasp what Fidonet really was. But for me and many others it was such a life changing thing.

Do you know of any good articles, books or blog post written for outsiders to read?

Amiga 500 + Fidonet brings back such fond memories.

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

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.

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

Blast from the past.

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)

(1993)

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

Best social network in history!