FidoNet
FidoNet is a worldwide computer network that is used for communication between bulletin board systems. It was most popular in the early 1990s, prior to the introduction of easy and affordable access to the Internet. The network continues to operate but has shrunk in size considerably, primarily due to the closing of many BBSes.

FidoNet was originally founded as a non-commercial network in 1984 by Tom Jennings of San Francisco, California as a means to network together BBSes that used his own "Fido" BBS software. Over time, other BBS software was independently adapted to support the relevant FidoNet protocols and the network became a popular means for hobbyist computer users to communicate.
FidoNet is governed in a hierarchical structure according to FidoNet policy, with designated coordinators at each level to manage the administration of FidoNet nodes and resolve disputes between members. Network coordinators are responsible for managing the individual nodes within their area, usually a city or similar sized area. Regional coordinators are responsible for managing the administration of the network coordinators within their region, typically the size of a state, or small country. Zone coordinators are responsible for managing the administration of all of the regions within their zone. The world is divided into six zones, the coordinators of which elect one of themselves to be the "International Coordinator" of FidoNet.

FidoNet was historically designed to use modem-based dial-up (POTS) access between bulletin board systems, and much of its policy and structure reflected this.

The FidoNet system officially referred only to transfer of Netmail—the individual private messages between people using bulletin boards—including the protocols and standards with which to support it. A netmail message would contain the name of the person sending, the name of the intended recipient, and the respective FidoNet addresses of each. The FidoNet system was responsible for routing the message from one system to the other (details below), with the bulletin board software on each end being responsible for ensuring that only the intended recipient could read it. Due to the hobbyist nature of the network, any privacy between sender and recipient was only the result of politeness from the owners of the FidoNet systems involved in the mail's transfer. It was common, however, for system operators to reserve the right to review the content of mail that passed through their system.

Netmail allowed for the "attachment" of a single file to every message. This led to a series of "piggyback" protocols that built additional features onto FidoNet by passing information back and forth as file attachments. These included the automated distribution of files, and transmission of data for inter-BBS games.

By far the most commonly-used of these piggyback protocols was Echomail, public discussions similar to Usenet newsgroups in nature. Echomail was supported by a variety of software that collected up new messages from the local BBSes' public forums (the scanner), compressed it using ARC or ZIP, attached the resulting archive to a Netmail message, and sent that message to a selected system. On receiving such a message, identified because it was addressed to a particular "user", the reverse process was used to extract the messages, and a tosser put them back into the new system's forums.

Echomail was so popular that for many users, Echomail was the FidoNet. Private person-to-person Netmail was relatively rare.

Geographic structure

FidoNet is politically organized into a tree structure, with different parts of the tree electing their respective coordinators. The FidoNet hierarchy consists of Zones, Regions, Networks, Nodes and Points broken down more-or-less geographically.

The highest level is the Zone, which is largely continent-based:

- Zone 1 is North America
- Zone 2 is Europe, ex-USSR (including Russia) and Israel
- Zone 3 is Australasia
- Zone 4 is Latin America (except Puerto Rico)
- Zone 5 is Africa
- Zone 6 is Asia (excluding Israel and the Asian parts of Russia, which are listed in Zone 2)

Each zone is broken down into regions, which are broken down into nets, which consist of individual nodes. Zones 7-4095 are used for "othernets"; groupings of nodes which use Fido-compatible software to carry their own independent message areas without being in any way controlled by FidoNet's political structure. Using un-used zone numbers would ensure that each network would have a unique set of addresses, avoiding potential routing conflicts and ambiguities for systems that belonged to more than one network.

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