Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!isishq!doug
From: doug@isishq.math.waterloo.edu (Doug Thompson)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: AI boards
Message-ID: <7.2323DE16@isishq.math.waterloo.edu>
Date: 6 Sep 88 12:32:43 GMT
Organization: International Student Information Service -- Headquarters
Lines: 34


 
In Message-ID: <40000002@osiris.cso.uiuc.edu> 
goldfain@osiris.cso.uiuc.edu writes: 
 
 g>The telecommunications/BBS community has coined the term "echo" 
 g>for some 
 g>very specific activity.  Can anyone explain to me what this term 
 g>means? 
 
It means "newsgroup". The Fidonet conference mail system began life with 
surprisingly little contact with Usenet. Instead of adopting all the 
same forms and terminology, the micro-computer "free" network set about 
to re-invent the system from scratch. 
 
"Echo" or "echo-mail" refers to the ability to "echo" a message to other 
systems, such that any number of seperate sites can maintain more or 
less identical message bases for the purpose of conferencing. "Echo" 
when used in the singular generally means a specific echo-mail 
conference. Echo-mail used in the general sense ususally refers to the 
conference mail phenomenon in a general sense. 
 
This conference/newsgroup/mailing-list is being "echoed" to fidonet, for 
instance, by isishq, one of those systems that is connected to both 
fidonet and usenet. 
 
 
  


--  
 Doug Thompson - via FidoNet node 1:221/162
     UUCP: ...!watmath!isishq!doug
 Internet: doug@isishq.math.waterloo.edu