IEEE Spectrum November, 2016 - 58

nov 2016

north AmericAn

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QuickHoney

original PhotograPhs: Jason scott

world. Newcomers later added other features
big metro areas like Atlanta, Minneapolis,
and capabilities.
or Houston, there might be a dozen or more
In 1986, Jeff Rush, a BBS operator in Dallas,
local BBSs to tap. But folks in less populated
created a conferencing mechanism for FidoNet.
areas were seldom so lucky. Rural users with
Rush's system, dubbed Echomail, worked simparticularly narrow interests-say, collecting
ilarly to the forums on CompuServe or the
antique clocks-may have had only one or
newsgroups on Usenet: You could post a comtwo other people nearby to chat with. They
ment, and anyone on the network could reply
longed for more.
to it. But participation in those earlier forums
To overcome the economic cost of longrequired either a costly monthly subscription
distance calling and the social cost of isolation,
or access to a public Unix system, whereas
BBS operators needed to find a way to interanyone with a PC and a modem could access
connect their systems, to create a network of
FidoNet's Echomail. As a result, Echomail
BBS networks-a people's Internet. Christensen
became hugely popular and was particularly
and Suess had floated the idea of a network of
useful for people living in rural areas or those
BBSs in the conclusion of their 1978 Byte article,
with niche interests. For the first time, the
but it was fellow amateur Tom Jennings who
whole population of BBS users could engage
designed a real inter-network of BBSs.
in discussion together.
In 1984, Jennings was distributing free of
Beyond the United States, BBSs seemed to
charge from his home in the San Francisco
spring up anywhere that a microcomputer
Bay Area a BBS host program for Microsoft's
could be connected to a telephone line. In
operating system, MS-DOS. He called the pro1987, Pablo Kleinman, a sysop in Buenos Aires,
gram Fido. The popularity of the Fido BBS
helped to connect the first four FidoNet nodes
grew alongside that of MS-DOS, and soon
in Argentina, and a year later, Juan Dávila, a
there were a dozen or more BBS systems
sysop in Puerto Rico, announced the creation
running the program.
of Latino Net, a Spanish-language conference.
On a lark, Jennings added an experimenFollowing the dissolution of the Soviet Union
tal feature to his software that enabled two
in 1991, a FidoNet user based in the United
Fido BBSs to call each other automatically and
States circulated technical information about
exchange data. After a coast-to-coast test with
reading and writing Cyrillic messages and
John Madill, a Fido BBS operator in Baltimore,
encouraged fellow FidoNet enthusiasts to
Jennings organized the first network of BBSs
reach out to the "overwhelming" number of
and called it FidoNet. Within a decade, FidoNet
Russian users joining the network.
grew into a massive 20,000-node network
By 1993, Randy Bush, a long-time advocate
reaching users as far away as South Africa and
of
FidoNet in the developing world, estimated
New Zealand. Unlike with today's Internet,
HAll OF FAMERS:
that 59 percent of the nodes were located
machines on this network would typically
In the 1970s and 1980s,
Ward Christensen [top],
in North America, 30 percent in Europe,
store data for many hours before forwarding it
Randy Suess [middle],
4
percent in Australia and New Zealand,
on to its destination. But FidoNet nevertheless
and Tom Jennings
with the remaining 7 percent split among
functioned as a valuable global data network.
[bottom] helped to pioneer
the then-new online world.
Asia, Latin America, and Africa. The African
The early versions of FidoNet included a
Christensen and Suess
systems may have been small relative to the
number of clever design decisions that facilideveloped "Ward and
whole network, but these small networks
tated the rapid growth of the network. From
Randy's Computerized
Bulletin Board System,"
could have an outsize impact for local users. In
the start, for example, Jennings encouraged
and Jennings later
some regions of Africa, noted Bush, a FidoNet
collaboration by publishing technical docucreated FidoNet.
gateway provided an important means for
mentation on FidoNet's protocols and file
poorly funded academics and NGO staffers to
formats. As a result, support for FidoNet was
added to other BBS-software packages and soon became a keep up to date with the latest research and news from abroad.
The growth of FidoNet during the 1980s was part of a larger
de facto standard for building such networks.
Because FidoNet was run primarily by hobbyists, it was movement toward greater connectivity among computer
designed to keep costs down. Exchanges between nodes nor- networks. Those interconnections were made using spemally took place in the middle of the night, when long-distance cial gateways that translated messages between otherwise
phone rates were lowest. This interval, during which many incompatible networks. In 1986, the administrators of several
BBSs refused to answer calls from users, became known to institutional Unix systems opened gateways to nearby BBSs,
thereby enabling the exchange of messages among users of
insiders as "national mail hour."
Initially, FidoNet provided only inter-BBS email services. FidoNet, Usenet, and the nascent Internet. Indeed, several
But FidoNet allowed BBS users to imagine themselves con- Usenet newsgroups began as automatically created copies of
tributing to a vast conversation with people from all over the material posted in popular FidoNet Echomail conferences.

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Spectrum November, 2016