Years ago I met Tom Jennings, who began the whole thing; I asked him about its (then) current state of development and he said, well, it was useful when modems were running at 2400 baud. He went on to start a magazine called Homocore which was pretty amazing - and I think he might be the moderator of the Bruce Sterling Dead Technology list - I'm not sure. You might search for him online - I'd be curious what you turn up. Not only re: Fidonet, but also the entire computer bulleten board BBS culture, which seems just about gone now - I know that Monochrome's still running in England - I check in on occasion - it's got a web base as well - Alan, sondheim@panix.com Internet text at http://www.anu.edu.au/english/internet_txt Partial at http://lists.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/internet_txt.html Trace Projects at http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/writers/sondheim/index.htm CDROM of collected work 1994-2002 available: write sondheim@panix.com