>> and to think that folk still complain about fidonet embracing
>> the internet for certain operations...

 WG> I can't understand why ANYBODY would complain. Fidonet was
 WG> not founded as the anti-internet. Fidonet was founded as a
 WG> message exchange network for BBSes, in a time when an
 WG> internet connection was often more difficult to arrange than
 WG> a stolen organ transplant.

rotfl! i hear that... most folk complained because they didn't understand
the 'net and many moderators didn't want their echos overrun with no
accountability... remember that real names rule?

 WG> Fidonet has survived by virtue of its culture, and to a
 WG> certain extent outside of North America, to its availability
 WG> off the 'net.

true...

 WG> Back in the day, I was coughing up $20 CDN every couple of
 WG> months to split the long-distance phone between myself and
 WG> thirty other people.

i wish i had had that... i was spending some $200US - $300US every month
for my own system... and that was in out of state LD costs... in-state
calls were more expensive...

 WG> Echomail and Netmail from outside Net
 WG> 249 arrive once, sometimes twice a day, from Ken Whathisface
 WG> (RC12 forever) in Ottawa. Ken made one, some times two, calls
 WG> a day Z1EC .. Bob??? .. This meant a round-trip time for
 WG> echomail outside of Ontario was somewhere in the
 WG> neighbourhood of 3-4 days.

sounds about right... i can't remember ken's last name... he's not the R12C
any more, though... robert couture has that distinction... bob satti is the
bob you are thinking of...

 WG> Anybody who complains does not remember their history well.

you got that right... to age my membership, i participated in the P4 vote
that put P4 in place...

 WG> Maybe I should let those people in on the fact that back
 WG> then, I was also calling MountainView, CA once a day (with my
 WG> Telebit Trailblazer 14.4 -- uucp-g spoofing, baby!) for $0.25
 WG> CDN/min to drop off usenet and exchange email.

i hear ya there! i was running waffle bbs under remote access for email and
news access... my calls for that were local, though... was being fed thru
unc (university of north carolina) only one hop from them...

)\/(ark