On the Environment and Early Days of Usenet News (1998)

[ReadToLearn]

http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/text/ACN8-1.txt

[salgernon]

For a fun retro afternoon:

  telnet telehack.com

  .usenet
  2b36b  Bitgraph mouse support routines      net.emacs            02-Oct-85 14:28
  2b36c  Faculty & Research openings          fa.arpa-bboard       02-Oct-85 14:29
  2b36d  [longish] Re: ATTIS's force redu   1 net.flame            02-Oct-85 14:31
  2b36e  Problem with DA's, PICT, and Scr   1 net.micro.mac  02-Oct-85 14:31
  2b36f  Dual Channel NRZI Encoder/Decode     net.ham-radio.packet 02-Oct-85 14:34
  2b370  APSE E&V Evaluator Survey            net.lang.ada         02-Oct-85 14:35
  2b371  Sullivan County International        net.aviation         02-Oct-85 14:41

[sillysaurus3 → salgernon]

This is incredible! Thank you so much. This was before my time, and I've always wondered what those days felt like. This is probably the close I'll get to living it.

  usenet

  news> 1f059

  Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!godot!massar
  From: massar@godot.UUCP (J.P. Massar)
  Subject: CCA Emacs Elisp bug fix
  Date: Thu, 14-Feb-85 02:30:40 EST
  Newsgroups: net.emacs
  Organization: Thinking Machines, Cambridge, MA

  Following is a quick fix to make edefuned functions
  given numeric arguments obey the documentation.

  ...

[_ofdw → sillysaurus3]

Oh bang-paths, how delightfully unwieldy.

[alphapapa]

    "A large part of the success of Usenet is due to the fact 
       that its admins. do *not* generally quash argument and
       unpopular opinion. This made it a crucible for testing 
       ideas and opinions in one of the closest approaches to the
       `marketplace of ideas' that has been seen in history."
    Gregory G. Woodbury

[B1FF_PSUVM → alphapapa]

Yeah, yeah, that and the posts by Sonja K------- in alt.sex.a---

[bluedino]

>> Ken Thompson and someone else from Bell Labs (who years later I realized was Brian Kernighan)

The computing world seemed so small back then. You've got just a handful of guys making things we still used to this day, like C and UNIX, and then they're writing computer chess programs on the side. True 10x developers.

[B1FF_PSUVM]

Ah, good times.

Although weemba could be a real jerk.

(Also, that '_' should be '@' but, ya know, things have kept decaying since the golden age.)

[brudgers]

Date: 1998

Title: The Amateur Computerist, Winter/Spring 1998