The Home Of Usenet Is No More...

[endure]

Duke University in North Carolina is where Usenet began, and today the institution is shutting down its Usenet server. The college cites "low usage and rising costs" for the decision.

The first messages began flowing in 1980, after two Duke students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis, developed the protocol, using UUCP as a transport and modems (two 300 baud auto-diallers) and telephone lines as the backbone.

The system was unveiled at a Usenix meeting in January 1980, in which the two students distributed a five page handout called "Invitation to a General Access UNIX Network" to attendees. Their goal, they said, was "a poor man's Arpanet". By the time Arpanet evolved into today's internet, Usenet was already hugely popular, and evolved its own sophisticated nntp protocol.

And what a legacy.

"Many social aspects of online communication – from emoticons and slang acronyms such as LOL to flame wars – originated or were popularized on Usenet," notes the college.

It was also a nice example of a distributed system, with messages propagating to servers around the world. No Fail Whales here.

But then the original engineers actually had an education in how computer systems worked, rather than focussing on making privacy policies fade out of view using Javascript.

The definitive history of Usenet by the late Michael Hauben is here, in Ascii.

Duke's announcement, accompanied by pictures of genuine Unix beardies, is here. ®

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/20/usenet_duke_server/

[nullx8]

that is a real sad thing...

but more sad, in Thailand almost all people not even know the roots

[Phil Conners]

Actually the announcement and pictures is here: http://news.duke.edu/2010/05/usenet.html

[siamect]

that is a real sad thing...

but more sad, in Thailand almost all people not even know the roots

We all have our horizons that we cannot see beyond. It's nothing sad about that and Thai people are no different than other people from that respect.

In fact it makes life interesting... or shall I feel sorry because you never learned Z80 Assembler on a ZX81 as I did? Or shall a feel sad because the place where I work just threw away some old AIM-65 computers?

Martin

[Prasert]

Usenet is simply too complicated for the majority of internet users. Anything that goes beyond the webbrowser takes too much effort in understanding.

The internet became popular with the webbrowser, more or less the successor of the gopher application. It was graphical and allowed operation with a mouse. This made the interesting for the bigger audience.

So development of the internet focused mainly on websites. The html language was developped, Javascript was introduced and websites started to replace functionality that used to be available through other programs.

An example of a non-webbased application these days is bittorrent. The same questions about portforwarding pop up everytime, while the user refuses to learn about ports, sessions and NAT.

If one can't simply click with a mouse, it's too difficult. And usenet belongs in many ways to this categorie....

[welo]

I could never understand why it had to be one way OR the other. The concept of message boards and news groups are not that different, so why did software never evolve to the point where it was just a matter of which user interface to choose to access the content and participate in the discussion?

Never really looked into this idea so there are probably enough technical and conceptional details (attachments, user accounts,...?) that have to be solved. I know at least two services that provide a web interface for newsgroups (Google Groups, newsgate(?))

welo

[JSixpack]

Usenet is still very much around. I follow several groups almost daily. Usenet browsing, using a suitable reader, is a lot more convenient than web-based forum browsing where you have to click through. I much prefer it and wish ThaiVisa forums were on Usenet.

The article just says that Duke is getting out of Usenet. Other providers exist. The binary Usenet group providers charge a monthly/annual fee. Some text-only Usenet providers are free, others charge modestly. As noted above, Google provides text groups but only through the web; and Google-specific groups aren't on Usenet proper, i. e., can't be accessed via Usenet client reader.

[endure]

that is a real sad thing...

but more sad, in Thailand almost all people not even know the roots

There used to be a thriving Thai newsgroup on Usenet.

[endure]

Usenet is still very much around. I follow several groups almost daily. Usenet browsing, using a suitable reader, is a lot more convenient than web-based forum browsing where you have to click through. I much prefer it and wish ThaiVisa forums were on Usenet.

The article just says that Duke is getting out of Usenet.

That's why I said 'the home of Usenet is no more' not 'Usenet is no more'.

[ungcas]

that is a real sad thing...

but more sad, in Thailand almost all people not even know the roots

Having moved from Canada to Thailand nearly 3 years ago, usenet was very important to me. Its my method of choice to keep up with my tv shows.

[johng]

that is a real sad thing...

but more sad, in Thailand almost all people not even know the roots

There used to be a thriving Thai newsgroup on Usenet.

Ahh yes the soc.culture.thai newsgroup t'was was all downhill after the Lawrence (Lord) Godfrey case.

last time I looked at that newsgroup a couple of years ago it was almost 100% spam

[mintyfresh]

I loved GOPHER, and PINE was also great!

[mintyfresh]

that is a real sad thing...

but more sad, in Thailand almost all people not even know the roots

There used to be a thriving Thai newsgroup on Usenet.

It was pretty good but man there were a lot of spammy codgers on it as well, had to really filter through the dredge!

[JetsetBkk]

Actually the announcement and pictures is here: http://news.duke.edu/2010/05/usenet.html

That's not an ADM3A terminal he's typing on, is it?

[endure]

Whatever happened to Supat the Linux man, Tawit from NASA and Ajahn Samart from CMU?

[hiero]

and newzbin is now shutdown beautiful usenet, please don't go away.