Articles

The future of FIDONET?
by Henk den Adel (2:280/6415)

The subject of this article or rather my point of view indicates that there is something like a future for FIDONET, although the question mark burps up that ever present taste of doubt. If you are succeptible to the signs, you can not deny that decline in FIDONET is present. Many efforts have been done to stop this decline, many efforts were counter productive and have merely sped up the decline.

Decline has a negative taste, although decline is absolutely inevitable. Each human being will decline, our natural resources will decline, our sun will decline, our galaxy will decline, even the universe itself will suffer the inevitable decline. Time scale is all that matters. But how much time do we have? The same question arises when man is confronted with serious illness. He/she will come to the conclusion that only a limited amount of time remains, so he/she makes a wise decision: "Make the best of it, as long as it lasts". FIDONET can be seen as a patient with only a limited amount of time. So lets make the best of it. How?

Well, we do not have to reinvent the wheel, others have done that in advance. Early in the 19th century Watt figured out that a steam engine would be an nice gadget to lighten mans labour. In the late 1830ies the first steam locomotives laid the foundation of mass transport. Unfortunately steam engines were not quite so practical in the London Underground, electricity presented itself as the successor of steam power. Nowadays steam locomotives are hardly seen in western Europe. In the third world steam is still an intricate part of live.

Although steam engines are no longer the common way of commuting in Western Europe, yet many people are still interested in steam engines. Each country has one or more 'steam clubs' in a sense that transcends the steam clubs in Turkish baths. Some people spend nearly every minute of their leasure time to restorate e.g. old steam locomotives, for no other purpose than to have fun. Nevertheless steam power will not return as an alternative for electricially driven mass transport. When steam clubs are assembling for a national meeting, their members travel by electrical trains, occasionally Diesel trains. Although these people love steam, they are sufficiently realistic about steam, they will not dream about a steam driven TGV, Porsche, Airbus 400, or Ariane 7.

Yet another analogy. Some radio amateurs pratice the Morse code. The trick of this code is that it enables its user to make contact with another ham as far as right 'down under', with as little power as possible and a transmitter as simple as possible. Other hams use Slow Scan TV, voice communication as in single side band, AM or FM, written info by RTTY, FAX or AMTOR. Whatever means they use, they all depend on the ability of the ionosphere to reflect radio waves. But solar storms can prevent them from making contact. In the age of telecommunication satelites a rather disapointing situation. Nevertheless hams love it. Yet they are realistic enough to realise that satcom is here to stay, Morse code will not replace the phone or FAX.

So lets face it, the Internet drain will not disappear merely by the fact that FIDONET used to be a huge network. By no means FIDONET will regain its leading position in transferring information between people. Nevertheless we can enjoy being a FIDO node, since it is our hobby and hobbies should be fun.

The essence of FIDONET, the Internet and Radio Amateurism is 'communication'. People need to communicate. It does not matter whether they make a chat in the elevator, use the phone, go to the pub, fire up their morse tranceiver, type a message in an echomail area, write a letter to the editor of the local newspaper, contribute to a newsgroup in the Internet, all are just different shapes of the basic C: communication.

Now i will return to the subject of these thoughts.

• "Will there be a future for FIDONET?" Yes.
• "Will FIDONET be restored in its glorious glitter of the late 1980ies and early 1990ies?" No.

FIDO will be nothing more and nothing less than the the steam engine or the morse code, just another way to commute or communicate. It can be fun, it should be fun and it will be fun, as long as we FIDO nodes prevent FIDONET from sliding down into FITONET.