point - NicheInterests/mistfunk GitHub Wiki

This word has many different uses of course, but in our early cyberspace situation, a "point" was a private node on a [FidoNet]-style [echomail] network, allowing numerous [BBS]es hosted in different places to have slowly-synchronized shared network message bases: a private BBS maintained for the exclusive, local use of its [SysOp].

Q: Why would someone run a BBS with no outside callers even allowed?

A: So that instead of having to call out to other BBSes and wait in line listening to busy signals produced by other daywalkers, they could simply schedule a system-to-system rendezvous during daily maintenance in the witching hour, and have echomail messages automatically brought directly to them, hot and fresh first thing in the morning. (Also, this only ties up use of the machine and phone line for a small portion of the day, rather than requiring both be fully dedicated to the activity as was the case for public BBSes.) Time-shifting message reading and writing in this way is similar to how many message-heavy BBS callers used Blue Wave or QWK mail packets, to collect in a compressed form during a brief BBS connection and then read and respond offline at their leisure without having to worry about running out of online minutes or being disconnected for inactivity after spending three minutes silently mulling over what they had just read. A point is a Blue Wave reader on steroids.