Editing FidoNet (section)

====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>