Originally posted by Meatwad
When a 9600 baud external modem and a list of toll free dialup BBS's would create hours upon hours of enjoyment
Where did all that time dissapear to 
14400 GVC modem back in 1993. 2:5020/198.5 here. Didn't check Netmail for maybe 5 years.
I need to set up an IP-point system again, Bink-term mailer, Squish tosser and GoldEd editor - it's much more comfortable to read echoes with GoldEd then with modern newsgroup interface via usenet gates.
Our Moscow /198 was one of the first IP nodes here, we have fed about a dozen regions in ex-USSR from southern Ukraine to Sakhalin. Now there still are over 2000 nodes in Moscow (2:5020) only, and I am a co-sysop of a node from the second hundreed...
What makes me cry is that setting up Fidonet point was quite difficult, it was some kind of an intellectual census. Now every idiot here in Msk buys cheap ADSL and starts crapping on forums, blogs and newsgroups. I still remember the time when it was quite usefull to read hardware-related echoes, now only illiterate teenagers post there
