FIDOnet remembered

[professor rat]

Though fascinating, the Arpanet story excludes the everyday culture of personal computing and grassroots internetworking. In truth, the histories of Arpanet and BBS networks were interwoven—socially and materially—as ideas, technologies, and people flowed between them. 

https://www.wired.com/story/internet-origin-story-bbs/

Reposts not endorphins

FOR MORE THAN two decades, dial-up bulletin board systems, or BBSs, were a primary form of popular networked computing in North America. The creators and maintainers of BBSs, known as system operators or “sysops,” stood at the forefront of computer-mediated communication, carving out a space between nationwide commercial services and subsidized university systems.