Fwd: net.ham-radio from 30 years ago [telecom]

Bill Horne · 2011-12-20T19:04:09+00:00

I crossposted this from My thanks to Paul Schleck.Bill-------- Original Message --------Subject: net.ham-radio from 30 years agoDate: Mon, 19 Dec 2011 21:46:12 ESTFrom: Paul W. Schleck "Organization: Novia Internetworking, There is a web-site that is replaying Usenet from exactly 30 years ago(currently late 1981). The site is: old-style VT/ANSI terminal interface is a nice touch. I don'trecognize the software it is emulating. It's not rn, for example. Isit readnews? It appears to closely resemble the Elm mail client.If you prefer to use your own newsreader, the site also supports an NNTPserver at: I checked out net.ham-radio. The only user name I recognized was PhilKarn, KA9Q (though I did recognize references to non-Usenet thirdparties like Dr. Tom Clark, W3IWI, and King Hussein of Jordan, JY1). Atthat point, if you were on Usenet, you either had a UUCP (dialup,Unix-to-Unix Copy) connection, or were at a University or military site.Even the user who was relaying ARRL bulletins was receiving themmanually on a fixed schedule via HF radioteletype, capturing the text onan early Heathkit PC, and uploading the text to the newsgroup. Therewere a lot of references to "read this magazine" or "read thisnewsletter" for more detailed information external to the newsgroup.The World-Wide Web would not invented until over a decade later, anddial-up UUCP links did not support easy file retrieval. Even if you hada direct TCP/IP link to the larger Internet, so-called "anonymous FTP"sites like Simtel20 at the White Sands Missile Range were not asinformation-rich as websites today, and their contents were not keywordindexed. As recently as the early 90's, I recall some users like KA9Qeven going down to the FCC reading room on M Street in Washington DC toread hardcopy comments on petitions.The ARRL may have had a cable address, and like any other office couldreceive telegrams, but I believe that 1981 predates any E-mail presencefor the League, even via CompuServe or...

Dec 20, 2011 2 Replies

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Bill Horne 14 years ago

I crossposted this from rec.radio.amateur.moderated. My thanks to Paul Schleck.

Bill

-------- Original Message -------- Subject: net.ham-radio from 30 years ago Date: Mon, 19 Dec 2011 21:46:12 EST From: Paul W. Schleck " Organization: Novia Internetworking,

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John Levine 14 years ago

No, that's notesfiles, which looked nicer but had some internal limitations compared to software that used native news formats.

When I visited the site, the first thing it showed was a message that I personally posted to net.unix-wizards 30 years ago. Yow.

R's, John

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Telecom Digest Moderator 14 years ago

There's some kind of AI logic in there: I got the first issue of the Telecom Digest, from 1981.

The "notesfiles" interface has a sidebar "feature" that give other posts to look at in other groups, but if you click on one, it opens that post in the /sidebar/, not the main window, with about twenty characters per line. I don't know what they called the program back then, but I know that I've used it before, because I remember that annoying habit it has of opening post in the sidebar.

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