Editing FidoNet (section)

===Origins===
[[File:Pre-nodelist "fido list" June 1984.jpg|thumb|Hand-compiled list of Fido BBS systems, June 1984. This document formed the basis of the first nodelists.]]
There are two major accounts of the development of the FidoNet, differing only in small details.

====Tom Jennings' account====
Around Christmas 1983, [[Tom Jennings]] started work on a new bulletin board system that would emerge as Fido BBS.  It was called "Fido" because the assorted hardware together was "a real mongrel".<ref>{{cite periodical
|title=FidoNet History
|author1=John Madill
|author2=Bart Mullins
|issn=1198-4589
|magazine=FidoNews
|editor=Christopher Baker
|volume=13
|issue=32
|date=5 August 1996
|url=https://www.fidobbs.it/files/fidonews1332.txt
|url-status=live
|access-date=20 December 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211220181405/https://www.fidobbs.it/files/fidonews1332.txt
|archive-date=20 December 2021
}}</ref>  Jennings set up the system in [[San Francisco]] sometime in early 1984. Another early user was John Madill, who was trying to set up a similar system in [[Baltimore]] on his [[Rainbow 100]]. Fido started spreading to new systems, and Jennings eventually started keeping an informal list of their phone numbers, with Jennings becoming #1 and Madill #2.<ref name=baker>Ben Baker, [http://www.fidonet.ca/baker.htm "Fidonet History"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180314014550/http://www.fidonet.ca/baker.htm |date=2018-03-14 }}, 2 May 1987</ref>

Jennings released the first version of the FidoNet software in June 1984. In early 1985 he wrote a document explaining the operations of the FidoNet, along with a short portion on the history of the system. In this version, FidoNet was developed as a way to exchange mail between the first two Fido BBS systems, Jennings' and Madill's, to "see if it could be done, merely for the fun of it". This was first supported in Fido V7, "sometime in June 84 or so".<ref name=tom>Tom Jennings, [http://www.worldpowersystems.com/FidoNet/fidohist1.txt "FidoNet History and Operation"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140821110859/http://www.worldpowersystems.com/FidoNet/fidohist1.txt |date=2014-08-21 }}, February 1985</ref><ref name="bbsdoc">Jason Scott Sadofsky, "[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0460402/ BBS: The Documentary]", FIDONET Episode, 21 May 2005.</ref><ref name="byte198410">{{cite news | url=https://archive.org/stream/byte-magazine-1984-10/1984_10_BYTE_09-11_Databases#page/n353/mode/2up | title=FidoNet, Sidekick, Apple, Get Organized!, and Handle | work=BYTE | date=October 1984 | access-date=23 October 2013 |author1=Markoff, John |author2=Shapiro, Ezra | page=357}}</ref>

====Ben Baker's account====
In early 1984, Ben Baker was planning on starting a BBS for the newly forming computer club at the [[McDonnell Douglas]] automotive division in [[St. Louis]]. Baker was part of the [[CP/M]] [[special interest group]] within the club.<ref>Baker provides details of the club and the SIG at about the 8- to 10-minute mark during BBS interviews by Jason Scott Sadofsky, [https://archive.org/details/20040126-bbs-kaplanbakerfrog1 "BBS Documentary Interview Collection: Ben Baker, Ken Kaplan, That Old Frog (Ryugen Fisher) Part 1 (2004)"]</ref> He intended to use the seminal, CP/M-hosted, [[CBBS]] system, and went looking for a machine to run it on. The club's president told Baker that [[Digital Equipment Corporation|DEC]] would be giving them a [[Rainbow 100]] computer on indefinite loan, so he made plans to move the CBBS onto this machine. The Rainbow contained two [[Central processing unit|processors]], an [[Intel 8088]] and a [[Zilog Z80]], allowing it to run both [[MS-DOS]] and [[CP/M]], with the BBS running on the latter. When the machine arrived, they learned that the Z80 side had no access to the [[I/O port]]s, so CBBS could not communicate with a [[modem]]. While searching for software that would run on the MS-DOS side of the system, Baker learned of Fido through Madill.<ref name=baker/>

The Fido software required changes to the serial drivers to work properly on the Rainbow. A porting effort started, involving Jennings, Madill and Baker. This caused all involved to rack up considerable [[Long-distance calling#Categories and charges|long-distance charges]] as they all called each other during development, or called into each other's BBSes to leave email. During one such call "in May or early June", Baker and Jennings discussed how great it would be if the BBS systems could call each other automatically, exchanging mail and files between them.<ref name=baker/> This would allow them to compose mail on their local machines, and then deliver it quickly, as opposed to calling in and typing the message in while on a long-distance telephone connection.<ref name=baker/>

Jennings responded by calling into Baker's system that night and uploading a new version of the software consisting of three files: FIDO_DECV6, a new version of the BBS program itself, FIDONET, a new program, and NODELIST.BBS, a text file. The new version of FIDO BBS had a timer that caused it to exit at a specified time, normally at night. As it exited it would run the separate FIDONET program. NODELIST was the list of Fido BBS systems, which Jennings had already been compiling.<ref name=baker/>

The FIDONET program was what later became known as a ''mailer''. The FIDO BBS software was modified to use a previously unused numeric field in the message headers to store a ''node number'' for the machine to which the message should be delivered to. When FIDONET ran, it would search through the email database for any messages with a number in this field. FIDONET collected all of the messages for a particular node number into a file known as a ''message packet''. After all the packets were generated, one for each node, the FIDONET program would look up the destination node's phone number in NODELIST.BBS, and call the remote system. Provided that FIDONET was running on that system, the two systems would [[Handshake (computing)|handshake]] and, if this succeeded, the calling system would upload its packet, download a return packet if there was one, and disconnect. FIDONET would then unpack the return packet, place the received messages into the local system's database, and move onto the next packet. When there were no remaining packets, FIDONET would exit, and run the FIDO BBS program.<ref>Baker at the 35 minute mark, [https://archive.org/details/20040126-bbs-kaplanbakerfrog1 "BBS Documentary Interview Collection: Ben Baker, Ken Kaplan, That Old Frog (Ryugen Fisher) Part 1 (2004)"]</ref>

In order to lower long-distance charges, the mail exchanges were timed to run late at night, normally 4 AM.<ref name=tom/> This would later be known as ''national mail hour'',<ref name=randy/> and, later still, as ''Zone Mail Hour''.