On 6/27/2015 12:15 PM, Janis Kracht -> Matt Bedynek wrote:

 JK> So very good to hear from you and that you're working on or planning on
 JK> setting up a fido bbs system .  Ok, that's kind of selfish, we can
 JK> use good heads in Zone1.

A lot has changed since I last done this.  In the past, one was bound to
having a physical connection at a residence with a host connected via a
router, or co-locating a host at a hosting facility.  In any event, the
host could fail at the worst possible time (i.e. when you're several
thousand miles away).  At which point, remote hands only provide the
benefit of pressing a reset button.  Technology has eliminated this
concern!

 JK> Yes.. an unforgettable sound.  I remember how I could tell what speed
 JK> modem was connecting to my system by the negotiation/sounds.

My board and fido node in the late 1990s got up to 3 lines running USR
V.Everything modems.  In early 2000 I sold two of them on ebay but still
kept the last one to this day.  Not sure if it still works but I plan to
keep it as an antique collectable from the era.

 JK> Yes.  They gave us the tools to take Fidonet into the future, or at
 JK> least gave us the direction developers needed to create the protocols as
 JK> the world of telecommunications and the internet developed. We get
 JK> caught up in distractions to this day, but in the end I think we see
 JK> what's important.

I wrote several tools which I employed on my system.  I haven't written
anything significant since so one of my primary motivation for showing up
is to begin doing that again and possibly extend that to adding a feature
or two to software packages already in circulation.

 JK> Understand and I hope things are going ok for you "wherever
you are" in
 JK> the world.  Are you in the States now? And I also understand if you
 JK> can't say.

If you start digging in about North Texas or Oklahoma to the other side of
the world that is roughly where I am located!  :-)  Buy, I should be back
in the states close to thanksgiving.  But, that won't stop me from spinning
up a node.

 JK> I have a number of users.. it surprises me sometimes when I actually
 JK> look....

 JK> One fellow comes in every day at least twice a day to grab echomail via
 JK> bbbs's built-in offline door.. two other users log in every Thursday
 JK> night to chat with each other..  another user or two posts in the
 JK> cooking echo every day...
 JK> Ok, not like the 'old days' when I had to run two nodes to accomodate
 JK> 20+ or 30+ user connections a day..but it's not dead yet Jim 

 JK> I get a LOT of connect/disconnect hacker attempts via telnet that
 JK> Shorewall zaps  You know same old new format Lol

One goal is to start up a file repository (library) of old utilities.  I
realize that is somewhat overdone.  But I was surprised how much stuff I
could not find in one place when I started looking for them.  I do believe
one of the faults fido has is the lack of resources for new users not
familiar with the technology.

 JK> Run Linux like I do.. there are a bunch of doors that are available...
 JK> you just have to look.. or look for the keygen stuff, it might be there
 JK> as well, I wouldn't know since I run Linux here..

The host I would do this from runs CentOS 7.  I might do a quick look at
FreeBSD (my old favorite) but I do need to learn CentOS 7 as much has
changed between 6 and 7 and it would provide the perfect motivation to
learn the details of operation.

 JK> And yet we were freed from the clutches of the PHONE COMPANY (evil
 JK> creeps in NY at least (laugh)) so that

As much as I value IP there is something I miss about the idea of the
modem.  It is almost as if the more scarce something is (bandwidth) that
the more you appreciate it.  Nonetheless I miss the late night echomail
runs.   You always knew that the largest of bundles would come in around
1-2 am.  It took a while for the traffic to trickle down if you were 2 or 3
levels deep in local distribution.

It is weird to say but the volume of traffic grew disproportionately to our
ability to move it.   We see far less traffic in relation to the
availability of bandwidth.  Just imagine what Fido would have been in the
era of Cable, DSL and BinkP!

 JK> Yes McAfee (or anti-vir/hack software of your choice is your friend
)
 JK> or you can get files from fidonet  and hopefully nothing slips past us.. :)

On my personal computer, the Microsoft Security essentials has been effective.

 JK> Like I said, really glad to see you here :)

Thank you for the kind words.

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