Re: Old threads

On Fri, 30 May 2025 20:22:26 -0700, Justisaur <justisaur@gmail.com>
wrote:

On 5/30/2025 10:20 AM, Ant wrote:

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:
 

On a vaguely related topic:

 

TIL there's a partial archive of FIDONet, a message board
predecessor/contemporary to early Usenet. It's in no way complete
(300K messages from 1993 to 1998) but so much of that era has been
lost that it's nice to see SOMETHING has been preserved.

 

And it's not like its nothing; it's a half-gigabyte text file.

 

I briefly read FIDONet before I moved onto to Usenet. But that was so
long ago I don't even remember what forums I was involved with.

 
 

Available here:
https://archive.org/details/fidonet_combined_execpc_starfleet_messages_1995_1999

 
I remember those. I remember reading Apogee posts. :)

>
I've looked for my old messages to the DnD fidonet group, which were
before I joined usenet, but never found any.  I don't have posts and
they aren't in this archive either.  Sadness continues.

At least you have memory of what groups you engaged with, which is
more than I can say. In fact, if I am /absolutely/ honest, I can't
even be sure I _used_ FIDONet. I'm pretty sure I did, but at the time
I really didn't know /what/ I was using; it was just some weird and
wonderful message-board. It was only later --after I'd migrated to
Usenet-- that I put a name to it... and its quite possible it was the
wrong name.

The early days of Internet messaging were wild, with multiple major
networks, many with links to smaller bulletin board services. Unless
you were savvy, you never really were sure what you were using. Like I
said, I'm pretty sure --but not absolutely positive-- I used FIDONet.
Usenet too, obviously. I /think/ I may have trawled BITNet
listservs... or maybe it was UUCPNet. It wasn't really clear to me.

I really only have two memories from those days: one, there was this
/really/ awesome listserv where people shared riddles -- the classic
sort, like from "The Hobbit". Real brain-puzzles, those. I loved
trying to figure those out. Of all the lost parts of the early
Internet, that's the one I wish were preserved so I could revisit it.
Also, it was also how I first encountered Internet porn... and not
through any binaries or images. Not even through ASCII art. Just a lot
of very, very naughty stories. Probably tame compared to what was to
come later, but quite shocking at the time. I didn't actually spend
much time reading those (I was old enough that I could buy titalating
material from the newsstand) but it was interesting as a concept
nonetheless.

But on the whole, I recall very little of what I read --and wrote-- or
even the general experience of accessing the data. Just a lot of text
and cryptic menus. ;-)