Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

This shorter article summarizes a longer article in Wired, which may or may not be paywalled for you, and that in turn excerpts from a book, because that's how the publicity machine works. It's a story that has been told many times before, but is worth hearing if it's new to you, and that's the story of what the internet was like before there was an internet. It's the world of bulletin board services (BBS) and communication networks like FidoNet (not the phone company). I was a part of that world, hosting my own Athabaska BBS (on MaximusBBS) and visiting other services as much as I could. There were also commercial online information services (AOL, GEnie, Prodigy, Compuserv, Delphi) that were swallowed by the internet when it became popular. But those were for people who could pay $6 per hour (plus long distance).

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Mar 29, 2024 07:34 a.m.

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