Anybody reading this has probably looked through the list of
newsgroups that their ISP has on their servers. So I check now and
then for new groups. Several times the new groups list will have
groups that start with fido7. For example: fido7.ru.ded &
fido7.su.hardw.pc.repair. I have sampled several of these groups but
there are never any messages. Just what are these groups? Anybody
know. Do they have anything to do with dogs?
Eric

"Eric R Snow" wrote in message
...
Anybody reading this has probably looked through the list of
newsgroups that their ISP has on their servers. So I check now and
then for new groups. Several times the new groups list will have
groups that start with fido7. For example: fido7.ru.ded &
fido7.su.hardw.pc.repair. I have sampled several of these groups but
there are never any messages. Just what are these groups? Anybody
know. Do they have anything to do with dogs?
Eric

Eric,
I got to wondering about this myself a while ago. This was the explanation I
found.

"FidoNet consists of approximately 10,000 systems world-wide which comprise
a network which exchanges mail and files via Modems using a proprietary
protocol. They are connected for the purposes of exchanging E-Mail to the
Internet thru a series of gateway systems which interact with the Internet
via UUCP with cooperating UNIX-based smart-hosts which act as their
MX-receivers.
With some exceptions, you cannot Telnet or FTP to a FidoNet site, only
communicate via E-Mail and Usenet News. "

--
John R. Carroll
Machining Solution Software, Inc.
Los Angeles San Francisco
www.machiningsolution.com

On Tue, 26 Jul 2005 00:10:50 GMT, the opaque "J. R. Carroll"
clearly wrote:

Eric,
I got to wondering about this myself a while ago. This was the explanation I
found.

"FidoNet consists of approximately 10,000 systems world-wide which comprise
a network which exchanges mail and files via Modems using a proprietary
protocol. They are connected for the purposes of exchanging E-Mail to the
Internet thru a series of gateway systems which interact with the Internet
via UUCP with cooperating UNIX-based smart-hosts which act as their
MX-receivers.
With some exceptions, you cannot Telnet or FTP to a FidoNet site, only
communicate via E-Mail and Usenet News. "

Oldtime BBSes (Bulletin Board Services) used to hook up to FIDO and
RIMEnet for news posts, the precursors to Usenet. I belonged to a
RIME BBS (Electro Shock Therapy, fittingly enough , and the File
Bank) for a long time (4 years, starting with a 1200 baud modem) prior
to finding Usenet and the Web. Thank the gods for progress and Tech!


------------------------------
Gator: The other white meat!
------------------------------
http://www.diversify.com Comprehensive Website Development

On Tue, 26 Jul 2005 00:10:50 GMT, "J. R. Carroll"
wrote:


"Eric R Snow" wrote in message
.. .
Anybody reading this has probably looked through the list of
newsgroups that their ISP has on their servers. So I check now and
then for new groups. Several times the new groups list will have
groups that start with fido7. For example: fido7.ru.ded &
fido7.su.hardw.pc.repair. I have sampled several of these groups but
there are never any messages. Just what are these groups? Anybody
know. Do they have anything to do with dogs?
Eric

Eric,
I got to wondering about this myself a while ago. This was the explanation I
found.

"FidoNet consists of approximately 10,000 systems world-wide which comprise
a network which exchanges mail and files via Modems using a proprietary
protocol. They are connected for the purposes of exchanging E-Mail to the
Internet thru a series of gateway systems which interact with the Internet
via UUCP with cooperating UNIX-based smart-hosts which act as their
MX-receivers.
With some exceptions, you cannot Telnet or FTP to a FidoNet site, only
communicate via E-Mail and Usenet News. "
Thanks for the info. Any idea what FIDO stands for?
Eric

"Eric R Snow" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 26 Jul 2005 00:10:50 GMT, "J. R. Carroll"
wrote:


"Eric R Snow" wrote in message
.. .
Anybody reading this has probably looked through the list of
newsgroups that their ISP has on their servers. So I check now and
then for new groups. Several times the new groups list will have
groups that start with fido7. For example: fido7.ru.ded &
fido7.su.hardw.pc.repair. I have sampled several of these groups but
there are never any messages. Just what are these groups? Anybody
know. Do they have anything to do with dogs?
Eric

Eric,
I got to wondering about this myself a while ago. This was the
explanation I
found.

"FidoNet consists of approximately 10,000 systems world-wide which
comprise
a network which exchanges mail and files via Modems using a proprietary
protocol. They are connected for the purposes of exchanging E-Mail to the
Internet thru a series of gateway systems which interact with the
Internet
via UUCP with cooperating UNIX-based smart-hosts which act as their
MX-receivers.
With some exceptions, you cannot Telnet or FTP to a FidoNet site, only
communicate via E-Mail and Usenet News. "
Thanks for the info. Any idea what FIDO stands for?

Eric,
It's a dog, as in fetch. Have a look.

ftp.machiningsolution.com/Fidonet.zip

--
John R. Carroll
Machining Solution Software, Inc.
Los Angeles San Francisco
www.machiningsolution.com

"Eric R Snow" wrote in message
...
Anybody reading this has probably looked through the list of
newsgroups that their ISP has on their servers. So I check now and
then for new groups. Several times the new groups list will have
groups that start with fido7. For example: fido7.ru.ded &
fido7.su.hardw.pc.repair. I have sampled several of these groups but
there are never any messages. Just what are these groups? Anybody
know. Do they have anything to do with dogs?
Eric

Eric,

Fido was (is?) a protocol that many dial-up bulletin board systems (BBS) use
to manage their cross-board postings. Sometime in the early or mid 1980's
it was starting to be used extensively. This is al prior to the internet's
prime-time usage by the general public.

Think of it as the trucks that deliver US postal mail and the letters are
your eMails... But somehow, it gets copied by Xerox along the way and sent
to many mailboxes around the country and world.

..ru is Russia

Regards,
Joe Agro, Jr.
(800) 871-5022
http://www.AutoDrill.com
http://www.Multi-Drill.com

V8013-R

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

On Tue, 26 Jul 2005 18:38:40 GMT, the renowned "Joe AutoDrill"
wrote:

"Eric R Snow" wrote in message
.. .
Anybody reading this has probably looked through the list of
newsgroups that their ISP has on their servers. So I check now and
then for new groups. Several times the new groups list will have
groups that start with fido7. For example: fido7.ru.ded &
fido7.su.hardw.pc.repair. I have sampled several of these groups but
there are never any messages. Just what are these groups? Anybody
know. Do they have anything to do with dogs?
Eric

Eric,

Fido was (is?) a protocol that many dial-up bulletin board systems (BBS) use
to manage their cross-board postings. Sometime in the early or mid 1980's
it was starting to be used extensively. This is al prior to the internet's
prime-time usage by the general public.

Think of it as the trucks that deliver US postal mail and the letters are
your eMails... But somehow, it gets copied by Xerox along the way and sent
to many mailboxes around the country and world.

.ru is Russia

And .su was the Soviet Union.



Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany
--
"it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward"
Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com

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.

- Mike -

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...

Just looked it up. FIDOnet started in '84, USENET in '79.

Best,

- Mike -

On Wed, 27 Jul 2005 01:33:48 -0600, the opaque Mike Haaland
clearly 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...

Just looked it up. FIDOnet started in '84, USENET in '79.

Thanks, guys. I sit corrected. (Too lazy to stand.)


--------------------------------------------------------------------
The more we gripe, * http://www.diversify.com/stees.html
the longer God makes us live. * Graphic Design - Humorous T-shirts

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.


--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

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

In article ,
Eric R Snow wrote:
On 29 Jul 2005 18:04:46 -0400, (DoN. Nichols)
wrote:

In article ,

[ ... ]

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-wrapped 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.

[ ... ]


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!

Yep -- wire wrap was cheaper than custom PC boards in the
onesy-twosey world -- but was a lot of fun to debug. I've done enough
of that on my own hand-built boards.

The board in question was a prototype kit sold by one of the
local electronics supply houses (Avnet, IIRC), and the fellow who built
it added the needed chips to allow serial ports for talking to the
modem, and to the repeater (as well as a local one for maintenance).

Enjoy,
DoN.

--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

DoN. Nichols wrote:
..

Yep -- wire wrap was cheaper than custom PC boards in the
onesy-twosey world -- but was a lot of fun to debug. I've done enough
of that on my own hand-built boards.
.
I was also told that good wire wraps were more reliable than soldered
joints. By good, I mean by a certified wire wrap technician using
certified tools and materials. We used to use a lot of wire wrap on
space stuff for its reliability. Though I didn't work for the companies
that made the Apollo vehicles and lander, I have been told the main
Apollo computer was wire wrapped.

In article ,
Don Stauffer wrote:
DoN. Nichols wrote:
.

Yep -- wire wrap was cheaper than custom PC boards in the
onesy-twosey world -- but was a lot of fun to debug. I've done enough
of that on my own hand-built boards.
.
I was also told that good wire wraps were more reliable than soldered
joints. By good, I mean by a certified wire wrap technician using
certified tools and materials. We used to use a lot of wire wrap on
space stuff for its reliability. Though I didn't work for the companies
that made the Apollo vehicles and lander, I have been told the main
Apollo computer was wire wrapped.

The phone company used to use wire wrap as "permanent"
connection, and soldered as "temporary". They used heavier gauge wire
and larger square pins, but the principle was the same.

The major problem with a wire-wrapped computer is that it is
*very* heavy compared to a printed circuit board. There are the square
bonze pins 1" long with a pin socket at the end, all the wire (longer
than a PC trace, and more metal in them), and the PC boards still
(usually) carried power planes. And -- the boards had to be spaced
something like 1-1/2" center to center, instead of the 3/4" which was
usually possible for logic circuits on PC boards.

FWIW, the early Bridgeport BOSS-3 CNC controllers were
wire-wrapped -- because they had not yet settled on a final
configuration. The later ones were PC boards.

In the boards which I made, I usually used yellow for all logic
level signals, black for ground and red for +5V. On one project for
work, yellow was for the address lines and blue for data lines (or was
it vice versa), and white for analog signals. I wanted all those
colors because others were wrapping some of the boards, and if they did
not work *I* was going to have to troubleshoot them. :-)

Enjoy,
DoN.

--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---