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Miloslav Ciz 2022-05-14 18:38:05 +02:00
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@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ Usenet invented many things that survive until today such as the words *[spam](s
Usenet was originally [ASCII](ascii.md) only, but people started to post binary files encoded as ASCII and there were dedicated sections just for posting binaries, so you co go [piiiiiiiiirating](piracy.md).
It worked like this: there were a number of Usenet servers that all collaborated on keeping a database of *articles* that users posted (very roughly this is similar to how [blockchain](blockchain.md) works nowadays); the servers would more or less mirror each other's content. These servers were called *providers* as they also allowed access to Usenet but this was usually for a fee. The system uses a [NNTP](nntp.md) (Network News Transfer Protocol) protocol. The articles users posted were also called *posts* or *news*, they were in plain text and were similar to email messages. Other users could reply to posts, creating a discussion thread. Every post was also categorized under certain **newsgroup** that formed a hierarchy (e.g. *comp.lang.java*). After so called *Big Renaming* in 1987 the system eventually settled on 8 top level hierarchies (called the *Big 8*): comp.* (computers), news.* (news), sci.* (science), rec.* (recreation), soc.* (social), talk.* (talk), misc.* (other) and humanities.* (humanities). There was also another one called alt.* for controversial topics.
It worked like this: there were a number of Usenet servers that all collaborated on keeping a database of *articles* that users posted (very roughly this is similar to how [blockchain](blockchain.md) works nowadays); the servers would more or less mirror each other's content. These servers were called *providers* as they also allowed access to Usenet but this was usually for a fee. The system uses a [NNTP](nntp.md) (Network News Transfer Protocol) protocol. The articles users posted were also called *posts* or *news*, they were in plain text and were similar to email messages. Other users could reply to posts, creating a discussion thread. Every post was also categorized under certain **newsgroup** that formed a hierarchy (e.g. *comp.lang.java*). After so called *Big Renaming* in 1987 the system eventually settled on 8 top level hierarchies (called the *Big 8*): comp.* (computers), news.* (news), sci.* (science), rec.* (recreation), soc.* (social), talk.* (talk), misc.* (other) and humanities.* (humanities). There was also another one called alt.* for controversial topics. According to [Jargon File](jargon_file.md), by 1996 there was over 10000 different newsgroups.
Usenet was the pre-[web](www.md) web, kind of like an 80s [reddit](reddit.md) which contained huge amounts of historical information and countless discussions of true computer [nerds](nerd.md) which are however not easily accessible anymore as there aren't so many archives, they aren't well indexed and Usenet access is normally paid. It's a shame. It is possible to find e.g. initial reactions to the [AIDS](aids.md) disease, people asking what the [Internet](internet.md) was, people discussing future technologies, the German cannibal (Meiwes) looking for someone to eat (which he eventually did), [Bezos](bezos.md) looking for [Amazon](amazon.md) programmers, a heated debate between [Linus Torvalds](torvalds.md) and [Andrew Tanenbaum](tanenbaum.md) about the best OS architecture (the "Linux is obsolete" discussion) or [Douglas Adams](douglas_adams.md) talking to his fans. There are also some politically incorrect groups like *alt.niggers* [lol](lol.md).