On 29 Jul 2005 18:04:46 -0400, (DoN. Nichols)
wrote:

In article ,
Mike Haaland wrote:
On Mon, 25 Jul 2005 17:31:53 -0700, Larry Jaques
wrote:

Oldtime BBSes (Bulletin Board Services) used to hook up to FIDO and
RIMEnet for news posts, the precursors to Usenet....

I'm pretty sure Usenet was around WAY before FIDO.

I'm not positive about that -- but they were totally distinct
worlds at that time. Fidonet ran on home computers (probably CP/M ones
at first, followed by IBM-PCs, while usenet was pretty much entirely
based on unix systems -- at first running on shell scripts, before
moving to compiled code.

The first CBBS that I ever experienced was built on a
wire-rapped 6800 system run by AMRAD (the local ham organization), and
it was also connected to the local 2-meter repeater. I'm pretty sure
that this was before the first usenet messages.

Enjoy,
DoN.


My Dad's first company built machines for testing integrated circuits
before on the wafer before the wafer was cut into individual "dice".
These machines had large cabinets full of electronics. And there must
have been thousands of feet of wire as many of the components were
connected with wire wrap. The wire wrapped boards were buried behind a
veritable nest of tiny wires. I asked my Dad what they did for trouble
shooting. He said it was very time consuming and expensive. After the
electronics were assembled and tested they were put into an oven for
running at elevated temperature looking for component failures. Then
they would have to delve into the wire wrap nest and replace any
devices that failed. Sheesh!
ERS