The Internet - But is there an alternative?
Created | Updated Mar 30, 2002
In the beginning the computer world was without GUI's, the Internet or Microsoft (these later came about as forms of revenge by nerds/geeks who got beaten up a lot at school) With the invention of the modem came a new era of connectivity and phone bills akin to the GDP of many industrialised nations. As shocking as it may seem these modems were not initially used to connect to the internet since graphics cards at the time were unable to display pornography with a satisfying degree of quality. One of the largest communication networks which formed was called Fidonet and is still around today. Fidonet is run by hobbyists who give up their time for free to run BBS systems called Nodes to exchange messages to and from people all over the world. There are still some 20,000 systems connected to this network, each of which is run by a "normal" person. Fidonet has a form of newsgroups called echomail and a form of e-mail called netmail. Plus many BBS's have files available that you can download. What, I hear you ask, is the point of all this when you can do the same on the Internet? Well echomail has a big advantage of newsgroups in that each one has a moderator who can ban people, so when "DeMonsLyr" pops into your group and is kind enough to contribute the heart warming message "u all suck" he can be safely dispatched without further incident. Also echomail has no get rich quick schemes, amazing free offers or anything else that you're likely to receive on a twice daily basis. Sorry about that. When downloading files you may also find yourself breaking the theoretical 1k a second speed threshold that you often find on the internet, if you connect at 33k then you will download files at that speed. How much would you expect to pay for this service? If you said "£1,000,000" then please contact us immediatly. For everyone else it's only fair to inform you that you'll be required to make regular donations of nothing. You will be required to pay for your phone call but that's between you and your Telephone company. If you are interested in joining us, why not visit your favourite search engine (or e-mail me), and have look for Fidonet. We'd be happy to see you.
