In a nice message to me you stated;
 SB> Bill, I don't know whether FIDONet will or will not disappear.
       Most likely it will. We see a big reduction of Node numbers
every week. This Nodelist would take up 3 meg compressed just 2 years
ago. Now I can download the node list on to a floppy disk compressed
w/room left over.
 SB> It's too  early to tell. Go back and read the prphecies of what
 SB> would and would not disappear fifty or a hundred years ago; about
 SB> how modern inventions would or would not affect how life was already
 SB> lived and would be lived in thier future. The fact is: much of the
 SB> projected thought proved invald both ways: what would stay and what
 SB> would go.  The internet is still relatively new. For that matter,
The Internet is about 5O years old. It was a government exclusive until
the 7O's. Computers weren't like they are now until the P.C. Jr. came out
and MS DOS was written. I don't know the age of UNINX or Linix but you
can see with the use of lower case letters that it is certainly NOT new.
Many of the things I saw in the 1964 Worlds Fair in New York which were
just prototype or ideas we use today and don't appreciate it. Can U imagine
being able to send a picture over the telephone lines? FAX is here. When
radio 1st came out, people thought that they had to leave a window open
for the fresh airwaves could come in and enter into the radio. 1966 was
about the time Colour television came in. I was out of high school by then.
 SB> BBSes are still relatively new. Their relationships with the public
 SB> are still being worked out.
Look what happened to C B Radio. in the 198O's almost all of the cars
had one installed. Cadillac featured a built in model in it's cars as
standard equipment.
 SB>  We don't know what ten or fifteen years will bring
 SB> And the presence of fast trains may actually make BBSes more, rather
 SB> than less, valuable. it might be cheaper to get together once a
 SB> month,  via fast trains, with a bunch of friends you talk with on
 SB> BBSes than to  stay in contact with people in other ways.
People don't visit with their family or friends as much as people
who are ON LINE converse with typing a message on a computer.
 SB> sondra
           Nice to talk to you, See if I saw you on the street and I
stoped to speak with you, you wouldn't listen to me. U would think I
am a strange man, and you would keep going. U don't stop to talk in
depth with a stranger one right after another in person as U do here.
Take care,
Bill Tracy
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