Concerning _Nodelist_, Bill Cheek said to Troy H. Cheek in SCANRADIO:
 BC>>> Like BitNet, MCINet, SprintNet, ArpaNet and dozens of others.
 BC> 
 TC>> What, with interactive messaging, full-time modem connections,
 TC>> mainframe computers, and sysadmins paid to take care of it all?
 BC> 
 BC> Huh? That doesn't matter. Fido evolved into a fairly automated dialup
 BC> network.
A part-time network ran by part-time amatuers which had, at best, a part-time 
and partial Internet connection due to the efforts of individuals, and not 
either network.
 BC>>> Fido echoes were gated to the Usenet;
 BC> 
 TC>> Last I heard, they still were.
 BC> 
 BC> When was the last you heard?  Oh, there's a bunch of "fido" somethings
 BC> floating in the UseNet, but not SCANRADIO and not a lot of other echoes,
 BC> either.  And what is there, is neither current nor complete.
Last heard about a year ago.  "Neither current nor complete" is probably 
accurate, since in all my years that's how it's always been described.
 TC>> Also, Usenet isn't the Internet, any more than the World Wide Web is
 TC>> the Internet.
 BC> 
 BC> And Texas isn't the United States, either.  So what?  There isn't an
 BC> Internet anymore in the strictest sense.  But so what?  We can still 
all
 BC> it that.
You can call it whatever you want.  That doesn't change what it is (or 
n't).
 TC>> Taking advantage of one of the many FidoInternet gateways that have
 TC>> existed over the years, some of which still exist today.
 BC> 
 BC> They do not gate for all of Fido. Maybe for their own local nets is all.
Nor did fidonet.org gate for all of Fido.  I certainly never sucessfully sent 
or received any Internet mail through it.  The longer it's been gone, the 
better the claims about what it could have done have gotten.
 TC>> Fidonet.org went the way of the dodo due to one (1) guy who shut
 TC>> down, officially because he was tired of the headaches, but rumor has
 TC>> it because the people whose mainframe he was using finally figured
 TC>> out who'd been tying up the modems.
 BC> 
 BC> But does it matter why?  What does matter is that Fido is no longer a
 BC> viable entity of the Internet.
It apparently matters to you, else you wouldn't keep emphasizing that it's 
Fido's fault or Fido's choice that it's no longer a part of the Internet.
 BC> Who cares about either fault or choice?
Since you're the one using those words, apparently you do.
 BC> What matters are the action verbs that are conspicuously absent from 
ido
 BC> with respect to the Internet.
If it's so important to you, take the action yourself.  From what you've 
said, you appear to have the hardware and full-time, high-speed Internet 
connection, plus Fido know-how necessary to act as a gateway yourself.  Apply 
for a domain name and start shuffling messages.  That's _exactly_ how it 
happened before.
 TC>> But then, I don't consider a simple mail gateway as being "part of
 TC>> the Internet" to begin with.
 BC> 
 BC> "Consider" doesn't matter either.  But e-mail is about as Internet as
 BC> Internet gets; like netmail is about as Fido as Fido gets.
E-mail is _a_ part of Internet.  There's also FTP, interactive messages, 
newsgroups, Usenet, World Wide Web, and tons of other stuff.
 BC> Times were when every sysop in Fido had an e-mail account.....and it was
 BC> little or no trouble to set up the Users of a BBS with a free e-mail
 BC> account.
"The older I get, the better I was."
... The sun really makes my day.
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