BBS The.Documentary Part 4 - Fidonet
Why Hacker News recommends it
Recommended as a great documentary on FidoNet's rise, with interviews with figures like Tom Jennings.
What it is
Part 4 of the BBS: The Documentary series, covering FidoNet, the amateur network that linked dial-up bulletin board systems together to relay messages and files worldwide.
Recommended by 2 HN commenters across 2 different months, 2014 to 2019.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec mitchtbaum · 2014-07 · on “The Government Once Built Silicon Valley”
A great documentary on FidoNet's rise with superb music and universal themes: [this video] A modern tale of care for a bright and reliable future, search: project byzantium fidonet
Recommends harrigan · 2019-11 · on “History of Fidonet (1993)”
BBS: The Documentary Part 4 ( [this video] ) has some great interviews with Tom Jennings & co. on the beginnings, growth and decline of Fidonet. "It just runs in spite of the idiots." (Tom Jennings)
Cites deepnet · 2016-04 · on “Head of Oracle Linux Moves to Microsoft”
TL;DR Microsoft tried to leverage its desktop monopoly to become a browser monopoly to a server monopoly and thus own and tax and sanitize the early web, we wuz saved by Firefox. The web freedoms we are losing today were hard won. Back when browser choice was NCSA Mosaic or Netscape , Microsoft was ignoring the web as a fad - Gates thought little of it then - sounds crazy now but in the early 90's, before access was readily available outside Universities, BBS was dominant for the public. The web was small then: registering a domain was altering a text file (no cost); SPAM didn't exist, every email was answered; all very university nice nice; ecommerce wasn't a thing. Microsoft 'awoke' to the
Cites deepnet · 2017-04 · on “Shenzhen is a hothouse of innovation”
FIDOnet's temporary connections over POTS copper is arguably more resistant to censorship of a populace. FIDOnet is arguably the precedent to the Internet, certainly Net culture derives more primally from the BBS scene than any IP transported culture. Broadband connects an IP addy to a blameable citizen. This produces a fear of sharing a connection ( and thus liability ) - this is concurrent with the demise of public WiFi. Wynn Wagner III (Opus BBS) reports a support request from a doctor in Vietnam,[1] who states the (Vietnamese) internet is censored but the phones are not. For similar but different reasons Tom Jennings reports FIDOnet support requests from .ru domains.[2] The internets cur