The history of Usenet dates back to the late 1970’s, when two graduate students decided to put the world together to spark discussions and debates on a range of issues and share files from around the world, an idea sparked by Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis.
The history of Usenet started with the setting up of three small computers connected together to form a network, with the idea that they could use UUCP to get the machines connected to facilitate information exchange among users. The first mode of communication was facilitated through shell scripts, which were later to be rewritten in C, handling the small volume of traffic involved. The initial network was never made public, before they were replaced with the news software that powered the inception of “A” news – a software that was meant for information sharing and transfer of articles from one computer system to the other. However, the beginnings were humble, as always, with the sharing of just a few articles taking place among groups in any particular day.
As this software became an effective tool towards sharing of information and as traffic volumes continued to grow, Mark Horton and Matt Glickman pitched in to take the file sharing software to the next level, with the release of the “B” release – the release was initially termed “B” news, with the advance in technology indicated from “A” to “B”. It was in 1982 that B News became a public version – and it has, since then, been expanding exponentially, with the introduction of new features and with software enhancements and releases.
It was 1987 when Geoff Collyer and Henry Spencer decided to give the software a facelift, with the upgrade to “C” News, or C-News. And, as always with the software world, there have been new features, releases and patches that have been constantly added – the most prominent of those new releases has been C-News Performance Release. By then, Usenet technology had become sophisticated enough to be able to handle traffic involving large number of groups, with ‘Relaynews’ gearing up to dispatch articles from one host to the other. While most news releases have been focussing on UUCP networks, with the introduction of “Network News transfer protocol” (NNTP) being introduced in 1986, they could well be used in other environments too, with news transfers taking place over networks that use other protocols such as TCP/IP or DECNet and such, to help in the transfer of articles over networks. NNTP-based applications provide for sharing of newsreading services among a number of hosts within a local network.
While many Universities and organisations have discontinued and de-commissioned usenet, there are, and will be, a loyal group of internet users who have been able to get the most mileage out of Usenet on NNTP.
Marion Marshall is a proud contributing author who writes articles on several subjects including Usenet and Technology. You can read more of Marion's articles and learn about astraweb and usenet located at usenetreviewz.com
Also read my articles at : Marion Marshall's articles and check out my bookmarks at Marion Marshall's bookmarks
The history of Usenet started with the setting up of three small computers connected together to form a network, with the idea that they could use UUCP to get the machines connected to facilitate information exchange among users. The first mode of communication was facilitated through shell scripts, which were later to be rewritten in C, handling the small volume of traffic involved. The initial network was never made public, before they were replaced with the news software that powered the inception of “A” news – a software that was meant for information sharing and transfer of articles from one computer system to the other. However, the beginnings were humble, as always, with the sharing of just a few articles taking place among groups in any particular day.
As this software became an effective tool towards sharing of information and as traffic volumes continued to grow, Mark Horton and Matt Glickman pitched in to take the file sharing software to the next level, with the release of the “B” release – the release was initially termed “B” news, with the advance in technology indicated from “A” to “B”. It was in 1982 that B News became a public version – and it has, since then, been expanding exponentially, with the introduction of new features and with software enhancements and releases.
It was 1987 when Geoff Collyer and Henry Spencer decided to give the software a facelift, with the upgrade to “C” News, or C-News. And, as always with the software world, there have been new features, releases and patches that have been constantly added – the most prominent of those new releases has been C-News Performance Release. By then, Usenet technology had become sophisticated enough to be able to handle traffic involving large number of groups, with ‘Relaynews’ gearing up to dispatch articles from one host to the other. While most news releases have been focussing on UUCP networks, with the introduction of “Network News transfer protocol” (NNTP) being introduced in 1986, they could well be used in other environments too, with news transfers taking place over networks that use other protocols such as TCP/IP or DECNet and such, to help in the transfer of articles over networks. NNTP-based applications provide for sharing of newsreading services among a number of hosts within a local network.
While many Universities and organisations have discontinued and de-commissioned usenet, there are, and will be, a loyal group of internet users who have been able to get the most mileage out of Usenet on NNTP.
Marion Marshall is a proud contributing author who writes articles on several subjects including Usenet and Technology. You can read more of Marion's articles and learn about astraweb and usenet located at usenetreviewz.com
Also read my articles at : Marion Marshall's articles and check out my bookmarks at Marion Marshall's bookmarks
