Fidonet. The history of one point (2010)

Foreword

This article does not pretend to be a guide to action, but only tells the story of how a single Internet user connected to the Fidonet network in (scary to imagine) 2010 year.

For those who have already reached for the “Write a comment” window to leave something like “Fedo - RIP” for posterity, I recommend taking three deep breaths and reading this text to the end.

The story of my interest in the Fidonet network (you can safely skip)

I first heard about Fido in 2002 from one of my acquaintances. At that time I was the proud owner of a computer "I-you-blinded-because-what-was-but-what-not-something-and-bought-up" with modem Internet access. All that was necessary for the young growing organism, chats, pornography, jokes by that time were available on your Internet and you had no desire to deal with the connection to the free, but incomprehensible Fidonet.

In 2003, in the best traditions of the SU.TORMOZ echoconference, 4 years after publication, I read Alex Exler's book Notes by the Bride of a Programmerabout the geek-fidoshnik Seryoga and his lady of the heart Irina. The creation was replete with healthy fidoshny humor, and Fidonet himself was presented precisely as a network of friends with all the consequences. :) I decided to ask about the possibility of connecting, but there were no nodes in the glorious city of Troitsk, Moscow Region at that time. Maybe I was looking badly.

Around the same time, the hacker magazine didn’t have the most rosy article of mindw0rk's “20 kilobytes about Fidonet” by analogy with the famous article by Nick Filimonov . Its general meaning was as follows: "How good it was before and how everything is rotten now." The article produced the expected demotivating effect and I forgot about the Network of Friends for a long 6 years.

How did this happen ...

During this time, I managed to graduate from the university and even start working in my specialty. This time, the notorious resource of Lurkmore, where, among other craps, Fidonet's memes were published, became a catalyst for interest . Having scanned the Internet for sites that will help me connect to Fido, I came across a small neat site for node 2: 5020/2140 . Unlike other resources, the connection process was described in sufficient detail and the only thing that was required from the end user was to change several lines in the configuration file of the FidoIP package, which was offered as the basic tool for working with Fido.

This mysterious fidonet

I contacted the boss Sergey and chose the point number I liked from the unoccupied ones. After sending test messages to local echoconferencing (this is such an analogue of Usenet conferences) and netmail (analogue of e-mail), I could consider myself a full fidoshnik.

Then I stupid about a week and a half. In my opinion, here lies the first pitfall for most beginners. You need to find the strength to not send everything to hell (after all, everything is so simple on the Internet!), But spend some time getting to know Fido.

I faced three problems:

1. The inconvenience (for me personally) of the FidoIP package (the GoldEd editor did not suit it specifically).
2. A huge amount of technical information and various kinds of rules (in some places archaic).
3. Search for live echoconferences.

Problem No. 1
I understand that nostalgia is great, and if you master GoldEd at the proper level , you won’t want to use anything else, but this editor did not suit me categorically. Firstly, until you remember all the hot keys, the work comes down to constant communication with the FAQ. Secondly: the terminal’s window, constantly hanging on top of documents (I work as a lawyer) is not too similar to a standard office application, but I didn’t want to run into the boss’s question about what I’m constantly doing in the terminal.

GoldED-NSF


Googling a bit, I opted for the HellEd editor . Despite some clumsy interface, after removing the "bows and ruffles" it becomes quite suitable for use.

Helled


Pros:

• fully customizable graphical interface (.Net 2.0) and Russification;
• excellent work with the colorization of quotes, origin, luggage, etc.
• GoldEd hotkey compatibility.

Minuses:

• the program does not develop, the latest version dates from 2008;
• in comparison with other programs it seriously slows down;
• contains a large amount of garbage in the distribution.

Problem No. 2
At first glance, all the rules of echo conferences are different, but just read the “rules” of two or three quite carefully and you can simply browse the rest. Plus, before you post something, it’s better to observe the style and manner of communication of its participants for a couple of days.
In addition, it would be useful to read Nick Filimonov’s earlier article, “64 kilobytes about Fidonet . ”

Problem No. 3
Now the search for live ech has become a problem. If before it was enough to subscribe to 3-4 popular echoconferences to fully take your free time, now you need to find the popular echoes first.

Here I will indicate the resources that I used:

Statistics available on the Internet:
http://www.shodtech.net/fidonet/readfidoecho
http://www.fido-online.com/x/_-0?El?5&0

Statistics in echo conferences (Fido):
2356.ROBOTS and TITANIC.OFFICIAL

Search for live echoes for nostalgic people:
Enter in the terminal: telnet bbs.rndfido.netand study the fullness of echoes stingy male tear:

"Was a normal fidoshnik, became a simple bbs nickname"

I want to note that the boss Sergey Poziturin is trying to make the life of simple points easier and more convenient. Recently, he has opened access to echo conferences via nntp.

Now points can read and write to the feed via standard newsreaders. This is especially true for me, as it became possible to use Claws-Mail on my Nokia N810 tablet for these purposes.

Claws-mail (Nokia N810)




So it looks like on a desktop computer with Windows XP:

Mozilla Thunderbird 3


Outlook Express 6 with Fidolook add-on

Instead of a conclusion

I’ve been in Fido for a couple of months, but I want to say the following:

• there are a lot of smart and interesting people;
• the so-called "shkolota" is completely absent;
• the rumors and advents of the Great and Hypertext are seriously exaggerated, at least within the network itself “greatness and hypertext” is regarded more as a joke;
• Fidonet will live his own special life for many more years. I saw Enthusiasts live with a capital letter and I have no doubt about it at all.

Then let me take my leave.
Sincerely, Your 2: 5020 / 2140.12

P.S .: easy_john wrote a wonderful article “A little about the development of communication in the network” , in which he pointed out the differences between fidonet and usenet conferences from modern forums and blogs, and also offered his own version of the further development of communication in networks .

PSS: Sergei Poziturin 2: 5020/2140 asked everyone who contacted him for a point address to find themselves in this list: vp.propush.ru/index.php?q=node/46 There were applications from those who contacted him before 10 AM 04/22/2010. He will answer everyone. Please wait.