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Software Hall of Fame
oblivion:
This was our Internet before there was an Internet. (Note: FidoNet is still around too!)-40hz (August 04, 2011, 02:33 PM)
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Strictly speaking, you don't mean the Internet, you mean the web. The Internet started in the early 70s, and FidoNet was -- what, 1985?
From that viewpoint, I'd add Silver Xpress, FrontDoor and Portal of Power to the list. The first got me understanding what Fido was all about, and the latter two ran my point system and my BBS, in that (chronological) order. (No, I know most readers here won't know what on earth we're talking about. Move on, move on!
Fido knew how to do message quoting, too. UseNet standards -- the ones we mostly all use now -- are far nastier. ;)
app103:
These are some old apps...
Claris Easy Business Cards - The best software Apple ever released for Windows.
Copernic - Until Google came along, it was THE way to search the web.
Nuts & Bolts - The best defragger, ever.
fenixproductions:
Fido knew how to do message quoting, too. UseNet standards -- the ones we mostly all use now -- are far nastier. ;)-oblivion (August 05, 2011, 02:17 AM)
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Do you mean: http://www.riddle.ru/dl/fido/FSC-0032.001 ?
I thought it is Usenet standard (at least the one I had used on NNTP groups).
I agree that some of the current ways are totally messy.
40hz:
Strictly speaking, you don't mean the Internet, you mean the web. The Internet started in the early 70s, and FidoNet was -- what, 1985?
-oblivion (August 05, 2011, 02:17 AM)
--- End quote ---
Actually, I did mean the Internet in that I was referring to Fido's behavior as a 'network of networks' communicating under a commonly shared protocol; as opposed to 'the web', which I always took (perhaps erroneously) to refer to the global collection of linked hypertext documents accessible via the Internet. :)
But some of my definitions date to 'way back when' so they could well be obsolete by current standards. ;D
(And you're correct. Most people will have no idea what we're talking about. But that's good in a way. Because that meant they missed out on all the aggravation (even if they also missed out on all the "fun") of running a Fidonet node. Onward! :Thmbsup: )
oblivion:
Fido knew how to do message quoting, too. UseNet standards -- the ones we mostly all use now -- are far nastier. ;)-oblivion (August 05, 2011, 02:17 AM)
--- End quote ---
Do you mean: http://www.riddle.ru/dl/fido/FSC-0032.001 ?
I thought it is Usenet standard (at least the one I had used on NNTP groups).-fenixproductions (August 05, 2011, 03:21 AM)
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Because it cost the users (and most of the sysops) real money to send and receive every character, the Fido standard was designed to focus on clarity and conciseness. The standards exist in Usenet too but the costs are borne elsewhere and the upshot was -- mostly, anyway -- that messages were quoted in their entirety below the response.
Different Fido message editors handled things differently; my favourite (Xpress) did quotes very well, retained initials of initial posters in messages that were more than a conversation just between two people, and actually seemed to encourage the "selective quoting" that allowed the sensible ones to just quote relevant text (and the mischief-makers to use quotes to make different points to what the poster actually meant but hey, nobody's perfect and it was usually for humorous purposes :) )
I agree that some of the current ways are totally messy.
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Outlook's got a lot to answer for. Although I can only think of one email client that gets some way towards "proper" quoting -- The Bat! -- and one other -- Thunderbird -- that can be persuaded to work nearly as well as The Bat with some effort. And an addon.
As an ex-echo moderator (and briefly and scarcely in any important way an ex-Regional Echomail Controller) I do my best to keep to the standards Fido taught me when emailing and writing in fora but it's FAR harder than it ought to be. Odd: Fido was organisationally anarchic but internally totally standards-driven and mostly compliant; the Internet's almost the exact opposite. Maybe there are some clues there...
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