[anexprogrammer]

For those who weren't around, Usenet was built on uucp in the early 80s. As messages were store and forward you had to wait a good while for your messages to propagate - many servers only connected daily! Oh, and better set cron to dial in often as messages didn't stay in the spool too long!

Usenet back then was spam free and you could usually end up talking to the creators of whatever you're discussing. I rather miss it.

Quite a few tech companies used private newsgroups for support, so you'd dial into those separately. As they were often techie to techie they worked rather well.

I first came across Usenet and uucp via the Amiga Developer programme. Amicron and uucp overnight all seemed a bit magic back in 87 compared to dialing into non-networked BBS's to browse, very, very slowly!

[lettergram]

> Usenet back then was spam free and you could usually end up talking to the creators of whatever you're discussing. I rather miss it.

I still use usenet! It's not quite what it used to be, but you should check it out.

[neves]

Can you still access it though Google? They've bought DejaVú!

[hh2222]

Yes, you can still access newsgroups through Google, just search for your favorite group, e.g. comp.lang.lisp.

[tonyarkles]

Or eternal-september. Free accounts, although you don't get access to the binaries groups I don't think. I mostly use it for comp.risks, comp.arch.embedded, and some other things like that.

[JetSpiegel]

Aoie is another service still around, and is free without accounts.

[ionwake]

or you could use the site I built that reads HN/reddit/slashdot and any newsgroup you wish on a webpage. Its free if a little buggy - www.sagebump.com

you need the www