I just now realized that #Mastodon is pretty much the modern day incarnation of the Bulletin Board Systems of the 1980s and 90s. Anyone remember #FidoNet ? It was the most popular BBS software in that time. Any admin could host FidoNet on their server and it connect it to other FidoNet servers. Hence someone could join a FidoNet "instance" of their choosing and be connected to numerous other instances. Mastodon is like a BBS over an http protocol... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FidoNet
@amigiac A Commodore guy/gal eh? I started out as a TRS-80 guy, and then moved on to be an Atari ST guy. You and I might have bashed each other on message boards back in the day, only to find ourselves here in the Fediverse. ๐
@SteveJohnson never really a serious Commodore guy, started off on the Acorn Electron & BBC micro, then Amstrad CPC, Amiga and finally a mix of Windows and Linux, I've dabbled in the Mac world along the way.
I was all over the echos back in the early 90's trash-talking the ST so there's a big possibility. ๐
It's good to know I'm not the only Fido-veteran in the fediverse.
You might be interested in this video from the 34C3 conference last week.
https://media.ccc.de/v/34c3-9034-bbss_and_early_internet_access_in_the_1990ies