Hello Vladimir.

06 May 06 16:28, you wrote to me:

 VD>>>  and I know that Morse code use on the sea.

 MV>> The morse code was officially abandonned by the maritime
 MV>> community on Jan, 1st 1998.

 VD> In is not right -

Never argue with verifiable facts, there is no percentage in it:

http://www.imo.org/home.asp

 VD>  I know (and listen) signals from beacons (lighthouses) on the sea.

It was abandonned as an *official* means of communication. Yes, there are
beacons still using morse code as an *unofficial* means of identification.
Both maritime and aviation. That is just inertia and I dont think no one
but a few oddballs actually use these beacons any more for navigation.

Morse code is history. Like the horse and carriage, the sword and the steam
engine. You will still find a few of them around, but they have no impacy
any more.

You know this conversation has a high deja vu content. I must have had this
kind of conversation maybe a hundred times over the past decade.

It was Henk Wevers my former host, who founded the first net outside the US
and Canada: net 500. I was 2:500/9.5 and later 2:500/555. The net grew till
there were about a hundred nodes. Other nets also arose in the Netherlands
and at the height of FidoNet there were 13 nets with over 1200 nodes and
over 5600 registred points. Region 28 was the kargest region in Z2 and the
second largest after Germany for quit some time. Then in 1995 it started to
decline.  Now there is just one net barely counting 30 sysops and 13
registred points. Not a mere *half percent* of what it was at its hight. I
have seen the rise and fall of FidoNet in The Netherlands.

Yes and I had conversations with my fellow Fidoians in The Netherlands like
the one I now have with you: people who did not want to believe that
FidoNet could never compete witn the InterNet in the long run, people who
argued by pointing out small imperfections in the analogies I presented to
them. Horses are still here they said. Implying that FidoNet would live
forever. The irony is that
*they* are all gone, they who argued like you have all gone for the greener
pastures of the InterNet and I am still here.

Dont for a minute think it will be different in your region. You are a
couple of years behind but unavoidably progress will catch up with you and
your region too will only be a very small fraction of what it once was.

There is no future for FidoNet. Accept it. You call me a conservative, but
actually it is *you* that is unable to accept that the world is changing. I
have accepted that FidoNet is a museum piece. The days that it had any
meaning are history. I am still here. 6800 other former Dutch fellow
Fidoians are gone.

Accepting that FidoNet is a museum piece is the only way to survive...

Michiel

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