<story><title>Formal – Interruption free communication</title><url>https://www.formalapp.com</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>chrissnell</author><text>The non-immediacy of messaging was one of the things I loved so much about FidoNet.  A few times a day, your node (BBS) would dial into a hub server somewhere (sometimes over a long distance phone call) and download the mail bundle.  The more messages you got, the longer it would take, so there was always some excitement when the bundle was large. You&amp;#x27;d read your mail with care--after all, you might get 2-3 private messages a day--and responded with care.  Normally, you&amp;#x27;d just let your messages get delivered during the next daily mail call but if you had something important to send, you could initiate one manually.   If you were sending internationally and didn&amp;#x27;t mind spending a little coin, it was fun to mark your message as &amp;quot;direct&amp;quot; and watch your node dial up the recipient&amp;#x27;s node across the pond or the world.&lt;p&gt;It was remarkable technology for the savvy home computer user in 1989.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>cknoxrun</author><text>When I was 12 I was the hub for FidoNet mail in my smallish town. I was tweaking the settings before heading on vacation. We left the next morning, and returned a week later. We came home to an official notice from the police to contact them immediately. My parents did, and pretty soon 2 police officers showed up at our door.&lt;p&gt;They wanted to know who had been &amp;quot;hacking&amp;quot; from the second line in the house. It turns out I forgot to enter the area code for the FidoNet long distance number, and some poor souls had been getting a phone call at 3am with &amp;quot;strange noises&amp;quot;, which auto-dialed every minute for 3 hours straight.&lt;p&gt;The police had disconnected the line, and I had to spend an hour explaining to the police officers what a BBS is, and what FidoNet is. I remember trying to draw a diagram, but it was in vain. In the end they just left confused, reconnected the line and I promised to be more careful in future.</text></comment>
<story><title>Formal – Interruption free communication</title><url>https://www.formalapp.com</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>chrissnell</author><text>The non-immediacy of messaging was one of the things I loved so much about FidoNet.  A few times a day, your node (BBS) would dial into a hub server somewhere (sometimes over a long distance phone call) and download the mail bundle.  The more messages you got, the longer it would take, so there was always some excitement when the bundle was large. You&amp;#x27;d read your mail with care--after all, you might get 2-3 private messages a day--and responded with care.  Normally, you&amp;#x27;d just let your messages get delivered during the next daily mail call but if you had something important to send, you could initiate one manually.   If you were sending internationally and didn&amp;#x27;t mind spending a little coin, it was fun to mark your message as &amp;quot;direct&amp;quot; and watch your node dial up the recipient&amp;#x27;s node across the pond or the world.&lt;p&gt;It was remarkable technology for the savvy home computer user in 1989.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>honkhonkpants</author><text>In 1989 I had to walk down to the lab to use a terminal to check my messages and this effectively limited my email checking to 1-2 days per week.  Those ... might not have been the days actually.  But there were some high points.</text></comment>