[t43562]

5:7211/1.27 here - though I think this address is long long gone. I'm gobsmacked that I can remember it. :-)

We got fidonet in Zimbabwe in the early 1990s. It was utterly revolutionary for us - more than the internet that came later really. For the first time we could communicate with my two brothers overseas without paying for extremely exorbitant international telephone calls that lasted a couple of minutes at best.

Our modem was 2400bps (8-N-1 IIRC). We used the zmodem protocol. It was after I learned about computers but I learned a HUGE amount from this about protocols etc. Our phone system was terrible so error correction etc were of great importance. Working out how to dial slowly was also important for our terrible phone exchanges.

It let me keep in touch with my pal, K, who emigrated to South Africa and as a result he ended up sending me 21 1.2MB floppy disks with SLS Linux on them and kernel 0.99 (I think). The journey began! :-)

[liotier]

In Harare in 1998, I remember the pleasant surprise of finding a good "internet café" in some downtown office building... Was Fidonet still active in Zimbabwe at that time, or had Internet access supplanted it already ?

[t43562]

"Mango", which was the name of the fidonet node, probably still existed but was on its way out. I was at university in SA by then. I know it was still around in 1996 but I cannot find all my backedup emails to see if my parents were still sending me emails from the mango fido/internet bridge after that time.

[liotier]

I entered the MANGO rabbit hole... Lots of 5:7211 lore from 1994 at https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Comp_Articles/Health_Net_Zimb.h... - satellite groundstation too !

[t43562]

I remember the name Rob Borland (the admin) I have a feeling his son was at school with me.

[iberator]

cool story :)