Some more info from:
http://www.region17.net/fido_info.html
Introduction to FidoNet
The network is a loose coalition of many different bulletin board systems.
"FidoNet" and "Fido" are registered trademarks of Tom Jennings. A formal
agreement allows IFNA to use these in the name of the organization. The
network is by no means limited to the Fido software. There are several
"FidoNet compatible" systems which interface with this network.
A short history lesson will help in understanding FidoNet. Tom Jennings was
in San Francisco, and John Madill was in Baltimore, both working on the Fido
BBS software. In the spirit of finding out if it could be done, they decided
to add code to the system to support a dialup connection with no human
intervention during the wee hours when the sysops were sleeping and the
systems were free. This quickly became a useful function, since both systems
and both sysops were busy and it was a convenient method of exchanging
information.
From this chance beginning in May 1984, growth was phenomenal. By August
1984, there were 30 nodes. By September there were 50. By February 1985,
there were 160 systems, and a group of sysops in St. Louis had taken over
the administration of the list of systems. In June 1985 the network
converted to the currently-used two-part addressing scheme to support the
growth. As this is written in late 1987, the size of the network has passed
2000 nodes and change continues with a zone-based nodelist to facilitate
communication with systems overseas. But we get ahead of the story . . .
Network Organization
Today's network is organized into geographical divisions of zones, regions,
networks, individual systems, and points. A zone is a very large division.
zone 1 is North America, zone 2 is Europe, and zone 3 is Australia, New
Zealand, etc. Of more interest are regions, networks, and points.
North America is divided into regions. For example, the central region,
region 11, includes Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and
Wisconsin. Regions are assigned 2-digit numbers to differentiate them from
networks. Regions are further broken down into networks. A network usually
covers a rather small geographic area, such as a metropolitan area.
Chicagoland is network 115. Individual systems are assigned a node number
within the appropriate network or directly within the region if no network
covers that specific location.
A point is a usually a one-person BBS. There is an analogy with telephone
numbers. Think of the zone as the country code, the network as the area
code, the node number as the telephone number, and the point as an extension
for the individual. This is written as zone:network/node.point. For example,
Chicago is covered by network 115, and is in zone 1. The specific BBS which
has been assigned node 100 in the Chicago network would be 1:115/100. If
there were point systems served by this BBS, they would be 1:115/100.1,
1:115/100.2, and so on.
The purposes of this organization are twofold. First, decentralization means
that no one person has the task of administering the entire network. Since
it is a volunteer and amateur operation and such an assignment would be a
big job, it became obvious early in the life of FidoNet that
decentralization was necessary to support growth of the network.
The second reason for such a hierarchy is to improve the flow of mail. One
system in each network takes on the responsibility of Network Co-ordinator,
and that BBS becomes node zero in the network. One of the tasks of the
Network Co-ordinator is to forward incoming mail. Thus, if I have ten
messages for different systems in the Chicagoland network, I need to make
not ten telephone calls but only one -- to system 115/0, which is the NC for
Chicagoland. The mailer software automatically routes messages for nodes in
network 115 to 115/0, saving me money and making the network work better.
--
Regards,
Joe Agro, Jr.
(800) 871-5022
http://www.AutoDrill.com
http://www.Multi-Drill.com
V8013-R