[5-]

> any good public way to search usenet archives

no, you just hope google groups is nice to you (it wasn't the last time you and i had this discussion on hn).

but this time it is:

the posted copy is of the message https://groups.google.com/g/alt.lang.asm/c/bl21J0NYzBY/m/BjP... from "Jan 31, 1995, 7:17:40 AM".

it references an earlier, much shorter post https://groups.google.com/g/alt.lang.asm/c/ZNZp2K-SqhY/m/plK... from "Jul 5, 1992, 8:13:26 PM"

so the (1992) is not wrong, but most precisely it's (1995).

also, a mention on hn that came up whilst looking into this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12596371

[dang]

Thanks! I've put 1995 above.

[pvg]

There's also a variant with a 1997 correction, I haven't looked if they are different beyond the notice.

https://web.archive.org/web/20200114164700/http://www.dabo.d...

That one shows up in HN comment search, perhaps for sufficient levels of nerdery this the equivalent of adding 'reddit' at the end of your google search.