textfiles/bbs/FIDONET/JENNINGS/HISTORY/history-fragment.txt

FidoNet came together literally in one instant -- after months or<6F>
years of accumulated thoughts and ideas, many or most other<65>
peoples'.

Unless you use one of these damn things regularly, it's hard to<74>
understand, not because anyone is stupid, but because there's a<>
number of assumptions that you have to make or understand before<72>
you get what ``network'' really means. 

A ``network'' is what you and all your friends are -- even before<72>
it became New-Agey to say so. You're all interconnected, in the<68>
sense that ``messages'' or whatever from one person to another,<2C>
get delivered or heard. Usually, you simply talk to them, in<69>
person or on the phone. Less important news, who's doing what<61>
these days, etc, just sorta filters around, until everyone<6E>
(usually) hears about it. People sometimes add, subtract, or<6F>
modify information, or simply tell fun stories.

Well -- the ``network'' part is the {\it how}, the connections.<2E>
It's usually indulgent to talk about informal human networks. But<75>
for computers, they are so stupid you have to lead them to water,<2C>
and tell them where their mouths are. And to put water in it.

OK, so what does a computer ``network''? Why, whatever you tell<6C>
them to, of course.

I will not attempt to explain to you how a computer stores text.<2E>
You've seen it done, and if you haven't, you'll simply have to<74>
take it on faith. In one sentence: each graphical symbol (letter,<2C>
puctuation marks, etc) are encoded numerically, and the computer<65>
stores {\it that}. OK, so now you know you can store ``text''.

The trick to a computer network -- interconnected computers with<74>
the ability to do with ``text'' what you do with your personal<61>
messages (lose them, pretend you didn't hear, tell the wrong<6E>
person, etc) is to somehow wire the machines together. Computers<72>
are electrical devices, and so they need wires to connect them<65>
together. (Keep comments about radio etc to yourself.)

Stringing wires to and from every computer you might want to<74>
``network'' to is obviously not practical. But, there just so<73>
happens (probably\dots) to be a wire in your house that {\it<69>
does} run to everyone elses house -- the telephone system.

To cut short a hundred years of boring technological development<6E>
-- there's a thing that, you put electrical signals into one end,<2C>
and it makes sound signals out the other end, so that it can<61>
essentially talk in rigid mathemetical tones. It can listen to<74>
this crap too. ``Talk'' here means simply transcribe, computer<65>
says ``1'', device talks ``high tone''\dots device hears ``high<67>
tone'', and talks ``1''. The thing is called a modem. You buy<75>
them in a store for \$75 or more.

So what you do is get one for every computer. One end connects to<74>
the computer, the other to the telephone line. Your second<6E>
telephone line, dedicated to this thing, because I can tell you<6F>
you don't want to share the phone with a machine this stupid.

What happens when you do this? Absolutely nothing.

YOu can stare at, threaten and bang upon your computer all day<61>
long, but it still ain't gonna let you write a letter until you<6F>
run the word processor program. What if it was 1971, and there<72>
were no word processor programs? You'd be shit out of luck,<2C>
that's what!

And this brings us back to the present dwelling upon the past --<2D>
FidoNet. There were ``computer networks'' at the time I wrote<74>
FidoNet, but none that a mere mortal could have. (And I was told<6C>
in no uncertain terms that it was (variously) impossible to do on<6F>
a personal computer, or already done, why bother.)

Digression once again. 

About 1979 or so I had a decent (for the time) CP/M computer, for<6F>
it's time the equivelant to a PC clone 286. I could run most any<6E>
commercial program, and I wrote my own. I bought what was a bit<69>
of exotica from a surplus store -- an accoustic modem, which is a<>
modem that literally made screaming tones, with what looked like<6B>
ear muffs into which you jammed the telephone handset after<65>
dialing what you hoped was a computer on the other end. I used a<>
barbaric program that simply sent every keyboard character to the<68>
modem, and took whatever data appeared form the modem, to the<68>
local console screen. Lo, you could type to and from the remote<74>
computer.

What the remote computer ran was a program called a Bulletin<69>
Board System, or BBS, which were invented by Ward Christensen and<6E>
Randy Suess, in Chicago, in 1977 or so. It was simply another<65>
decent-sized computer, with a slightly more sophisticated modem<65>
that could tell when the phone was ringing, and answer it<69>
automatically (it connected directly to the phone wires, instead<61>
of my primitive ear muffs).

What was unique was that Ward'n'Randy had written a program that<61>
emulated the social structure (if you will) of a supermarket<65>
bulletin board. There were about 200 slots for text messages.<2E>
After calling in, you could post messages (type them in by hand),<2C>
read existing messages (after specifying which one, by number),<2C>
and you could do things that you couldn't do on a supermarket<65>
bulletin board -- concepts like the ``next'' or ``previous''<27>
message (the one posted after or before the one you just read),<2C>
search for a word within messages, and so on. (These additional<61>
things or functions are called ``features'' and like in a movie<69>
theatre, patrons (users) sit and wait to see what's next. It can<61>
lead to a disease peculiar to computer programmers called<65>
``creeping featuritis''.)

Ever listen to ham radio? Boooring. Unless you are into it -- in<69>
which case drawn out detailed conversations on antenna<6E>
particulars, including number of elements, where bought, 
bad-weather and bird-shit tall tales, so'n'so's fell down, how<6F>
those screws you sold me got rusty, and so on are excruciatingly<6C>
interesting.

Which they were to me, and a fe thousand others, at that time.<2E>
Mainly it was programmers talking about programmer junk. I can't<>
recall a single thing.

In Boston in 1980 there were maybe a dozen? BBS's total. There<72>
were two I called regularly; NECS, the New England COmputer<65>
Society BBS (I was a member for a while) and the cnode, based<65>
upon a software system I never really did understand very well,<2C>
run by a totally cool guy whose name escapes my now, in Andover<65>
MA. ANyways, (I am getting back to FidoNet here, hold on) on the<68>
cnode someone proposed a ``east coast -- west coast computer<65>
network'', with the incomplete idea of interconnecting a zillion<6F>
computers, enough so that there'd be one in every local-dialing<6E>
area, so you could get a message from one computer to another by<62>
hopping across each local-call area. Ugh. A mind-boggling<6E>
prospect.\footnote*{And ten years later, it has almost happened<65>
-- the FidoNet has gotten so dense in the Eastern metrosprawl<77>
that most mail I think from DE to DC to NJ is sent this way. It<49>
is alleged to involve incomprehensibly complex routing.}

So I read that, along with many other people, and many other<65>
messages on many other subjects. I never forgot it though. And I<>
never remembered the author, who persisted in his folly for quite<74>
some time. (Silly person.)

I worked for Phoenix Software, for Neil<69>
Colvin\footnote\dag{Though we frequently got on each others'<27>
nerves, Neil is probably the best person I've ever worked for,<2C>
and the most honest and least cheapskate, and occasionally<6C>
downright generous. Once for no reason other than they were<72>
totally cool, he bought a half-dozen of the then-extreme-tech 
HP-16C programmers calculators, just to give to his employees.<2E>
Now that's hardcore techie! And I still absolutely relish mine;<3B>
nine years later, I positively love using it, unlike {\it any}<7D>
other techie tool I have.}, at home, on my Multibuss-based<65>
computer I got for implementing CP/M on it for the manufacturer<65>
(Comark Inc). Since we all worked at home, 40 miles or more<72>
apart, delivering programs and such was a drag; or worse, after<65>
driving from West Medford to North Easton, finding out I forgot<6F>
some damn file or other. So we had modems (by this time almost<73>
useful; Hayes Smartmodem 1200's, direct-connect no more ear<61>
muffs), and the same barbaric software, and we would call each<63>
other up and say ``OK, I have the program for you. Hang up, and<6E>
the next call will be my modem calling'' then I would issue the<68>
appropriate dial commands to my modem, and Neil would wait for<6F>
the phone to ring, then command his modem to answer the phone,<2C>
and if we were lucky (someone else didn't call, all 10,000 of the<68>
critical parameters were set properly, etc) you got the {\tt<74>
CONNECT 1200} message on your screen. You could then proceed to<74>
type at each other (about as useful as calling on the telephone,<2C>
then putting a rag over your your mouth, and mumbling) and then,<2C>
the magic: transmitting a program or text file from one computer<65>
to another. (I'm skipping the arcane history and development of<6F>
what is known as ``file transfer protocols'', or 
``error-correcting protocols'', how the computers actually<6C>
transmit computer files from one computer to another, phone lines<65>
or not. Explaining them now would only make things worse.)

It was better than driving back the 40 or so miles, to say the<68>
least, even though the whole thing just sucked. Never mind the<68>
phone bills.

Right before I moved to San Francisco, December `83, I even had a<>
simple program that would make my modem answer the phone, make me<6D>
enter a password, and if I got it right, I could operate my<6D>
computer remotely! 

January 1984 was when the telephone company ``break-up'' (sic)<29>
was to happen, and I took advantage of it to get a free modem<65>
from Ma Bell. I was having trouble to get any modem to work at<61>
high speed over my phone line. The same modems would work on any<6E>
other line, but not mine. It was obviously the phone line, but<75>
just try to convince the telco about that. They said, and<6E>
rightly, that they only guarenteed voice quality, and it sounded<65>
fine. So, I ordered an AT\&T modem, and had {\it them} install<6C>
it, knowing it would fail too. And it did. When the repair guy<75>
would come over, he would shit bricks when he saw the AT\&T<>
modem. The third repair guy was cool though, and interested in<69>
modems and such. So he order a frequency-spectrum analysis done,<2C>
and found a ``bad spot'' that suppressed certain frequencies. But<75>
nope, there was nothing they could do about it.

So when I moved I swiped it. I refused to pay the bill (\$250<35>
installation, \$40/month, in 1984!) since it never worked, and<6E>
called from SF to disconnect my service. ``And where is the<68>
equipment?'' the telco drone asks. ``Right here'' said I. But<75>
then, it was New England Bell who installed AT\&T equipment, and<6E>
they were trapped in bureaucratic deadlock, because they ewre now<6F>
all ``separate''! . I never heard from them again.

So I'm in San Francisco, and I have an extra computer (an Otrona<6E>
Attach\'e 8:16), and now, an extra modem. I've got all this<69>
techie files'n'stuff, and not much to do. BBS technology had of<6F>
course expanded