Great points in Usenet history

no_nicks_available writes "An article on The Register points to some of the highlights of Usenet history. " First mention of Microsoft, GNU, Madonna, the Compact Disc, and more. It's worth a look if only to read the first kibo post to alt.religion.kibology.

Comments

What I wonder is...

[Beowulf_Boy]

How big is the original first few years of Usenet?
Couldn't of been bigger than a few megs.

Sept 11, Part 1

[Anonymous Coward]

The end of the world as we knew it ended on Sept. 11. 1989

Re:Sept 11, Part 1

[laserjet]

This was a JOKE. Fucking crack head moderators. I swear, only 1/3 of the moderators actually use their brain. Oh well, such is slashdot.

i just wish i could get my hands on that crack that the moderators smoke... seems like good stuff.

Re:Sept 11, Part 1

[plaa]

The end of the world as we knew it ended on Sept. 11. 1989

How can the end of the world end? Was the world created then or what?

(OK, I'd better go to bed before I lose too much carma...)

slightly off-topic

[ryusen]

i think the weirdest message i ever remember from my old usenet days was
"new group found: do you wish to subscribe to 'alt.sex.hello-kitty' ?(y/n)"

Re:slightly off-topic

[dprice]

Within the last few months, Wired magazine ran an article about Japan, and in that article was a picture of an official "Hello Kitty" vibrator. Apparently, Sanrio (owner of the "Hello Kitty" franchise) allows such things. They do require that nothing be sharp or potentially injurious, so you won't see any "Hello Kitty" knives or box cutters.

We now return you to the current on-topic discussion....

Re:slightly off-topic

[zhensel]

No, you're confusing that with the Hello Clitty.

Re:slightly off-topic

[zhensel]

I know, it was an attempt at an off-colored joke. The Japanese do have one of the lowest crime rates in the world though, so maybe the release-of-aggression-through-hyper-violent-video- games-and-animated-child-pornography thing really works. Then again, their high suicide rate muddies the issue a bit.

Deja ...

[Osty]

Hrm, haven't we seen this already? Okay, so now the Register has an article, but it adds nothing. Woo. Go Slashdot. Bah.

A great source of quotes

[evil_roy]

"5 years from now everyone will be running free GNU on their 200 MIPS, 64M SPARCstation-5.": Andy Tanenbaum : comp.os.minix : 1992-01-30

Creativity is no substitute for knowing what you're doing

Oh yeah .... google has been promoting this archive for a while.

Re:A great source of quotes

[nomadic]

Find me a sparc 5 that has no GNU software.

Re:A great source of quotes

[styrotech]

And along similar lines there's this one from the 1983 Return of the Jedi post...

I wish Lucas & Co. would get the thing going a little faster.
I can't really imagine waiting until 1997 to see all nine parts
of the Star Wars series.

First Mention of Micorsoft Windows

[pwagland]

This is the first reference in a newsgroup to MS windows that Google has found, 12th November 1983. This is before we even came up with the concept of microsoft bashing. And here is what they had to say:

This is the first I've heard of this, which appears to be Microsoft's answer to Lisa(tm Apple) and VisiON (tm Visicorp). (MS-* are tm's of Microsoft)

Re:First Mention of Micorsoft Windows

[Trepidity]

This is the first I've heard of this, which appears to be Microsoft's answer to Lisa(tm Apple) and VisiON (tm Visicorp). (MS-* are tm's of Microsoft)

Looks like Microsoft won that showdown pretty handily.

in another 20 years time...

[TheM0cktor]

sure hope /. is just as available and searchable in 20 years time - its one of few very few repositories of opinion that'll give the geeks perspective on the society they helped make.

Re:in another 20 years time...

[AnalogBoy]

Eventually Taco will have to export /. to a searchable archive on DVD-ROM, and allow people to purchase it, copy it, share it, burn it in effegy, etc.. etc.. etc.. etc.. etc.. etc..

Star Wars - Episode 6

[Satai]

I found this hilarious.

I wish Lucas & Co. would get the thing going a little faster. I can't really imagine waiting until 1997 to see all nine parts of the Star Wars series.

I wonder if that e-mail address still works so I can let him know that Episode 1 wasn't worth it...

Re:Star Wars - Episode 6

[emerson]

That address almost assuredly -doesn't- work these days, but since that's Randal L. Schwartz of Perl fame and Intel-prosecution infamy, I'm guessing you can track him down pretty easily....

Re:Star Wars - Episode 6

[Satai]

I'm pretty sure he's said several times that there's no way he's going to do 7-9, but I suppose that could have changed in the intervening time.

Re:Star Wars - Episode 6

[MisterBlister]

That address almost assuredly -doesn't- work these days, but since that's Randal L. Schwartz of Perl fame and Intel-prosecution infamy, I'm guessing you can track him down pretty easily....

That's too bad. Know his current email address? I'd like to email him the answer to the trivia question ("A New Hope"). Hopefully I'll win a prize or something.

Re:Star Wars - Episode 6

[andy@petdance.com]

I wonder if that e-mail address still works so I can let him know that Episode 1 wasn't worth it...

The poster of that comment is Randal Schwartz, who grew up to be a Perl Demigod.

Re:Star Wars - Episode 6

[merlyn]

Not that email address. But yes, at least a dozen people have already written me with comments.

I don't find that post as interesting as a slightly earlier post I made, which I claim is the first announcement on Usenet of a remotely exploitable security hole.

Re:Star Wars - Episode 6

[Nos.]

I'll supply what little info I can. I read the books 7-9 which basically involved the Rebel Alliance... though not really rebels anymore, cleaning up the end of the Empire. Han and Leia were married and had twins, Luke is teach Leia and the kids the ways of the Jedi.

I can't remember all the details, the biggest thing that sticks out is that a blue-skinned alien is heading the Empire, which still has a lot of troops, Star Destoryers and at least one Super Star Destroyer.

Wish I could remember more, as I'd like to read the books again.

First mention of Slashdot

[webmaven]

... On Usenet on November 4th, 1997.

Re:First mention of Slashdot

[Nightpaw]

Ever feel like you're not getting the whole story?
http://SLASHDOT.ORG


Wait, is there supposed to be some sort of logical link between these two lines? I can't figure it out.

Re:First mention of Slashdot

[Ratbert42]

Ever feel like you're not getting the whole story -- twice?

• • http://SLASHDOT.ORG

Highly amusing

[RollingThunder]

The runon tag is the BOFH article. :)

Just can't keep a good Bastard down!

Early Usenet Fact

[rlp]

In the early days of UseNet (early 80's) UseNet was "transmitted" to Australia via a 9 track mag tape in the mail once a week! Saved on telecom charges (early UseNet ran over analog telco lines via dial-up modems and UUCP).

Re:Early Usenet Fact

[ceswiedler]

"Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon filled with magtape, or a 747 filled with CD-ROMs"

Re:Early Usenet Fact

[CoolVibe]

The latency must've been killer :-)

Favorite Linus Quote

[dimator]

When he announced his project:

I can (well, almost) hear you asking yourselves "why?". Hurd will be out in a year (or two, or next month, who knows)


;)

Duh!

[mwalker]

But they forgot the most important one!

first post to mention Slashdot.

First post to mention Slashdot.org

The fools!

First Usenet Troll

[Gorobei]

Here's the earlier troll I know of: posted Feb 1982

It's quite well composed: starts out slowly with a nod to the endless chocolate chip recipes, then builds towards more interesting "foods."

Re:First Usenet Troll

[the_2nd_coming]

more like first Flame.....he is complaining, not trolling. trolling is where the person posts a comment that is used get people to respond and has no logical argument to back it up.

a Flame is very close to this except the person usualy has a valid complaint but gets overly inflamitory and offensive. he/she can back up the statment with an argument, and there is usualy som ewell though out reasoning involved.

this post was a flame not a troll.

the troll version would be.....

"you are all a bunch of rip off hacks who could not tell the end of a spoon from their own ass"

see the diffrence.

flaming is usualy more effective at stiring emotions because it has all the elements needed for an argument...which is mostly substance.

Re:First Usenet Troll

[FFFish]

Troll. He was angling to get a response of indignant, horrified "How can you possibly suggest such a thing" responses.

That, or he was being funny. Sometimes it's hard to tell.

Wasn't a flame. A flame would be "you are all a bunch of rip off hacks who could not tell the end of a spoon from their own ass."

Re:First Usenet Troll

[FFFish]

And I immediately realize, as I click the post button, that you may be trolling. If so, it was subtle, but endlessly cheezy.

Re:First Usenet Troll

[tim_maroney]

The post in question is neither a troll nor a flame. It is something which apparently the net, nineteen years later, still has no category for dealing with. It is called "humor."

Tim

Re:First Usenet Troll

[Valdrax]

Damn. That's good. I was proofreading my reply when I got it.

Re:This was a great article.

[LinuxHam]

I found about 900 of mine archived

Results 1 - 10 of about 419

(smacks forehead) what the hell was I *talking about* back then?? Luckily, with my name, no one is likely to find my particular sensless ramlings..

Should USENET be considered as historic value?

[Ryu2]

Should the USENET archives be made something of historic record, to be preserved by some non-commercial, non-governmental independent entity as a permanent record. Yes, there are privacy issues, but certainly, we have found that other forms of communication play an important role for the historian.

It seems that USENET and other digital online forums are becoming as important records of history as more traditional, non-digital means like books, newspapers, etc.

Posts, especially ones, like the Challenger, Berlin Wall, etc should be treated just like other media. In the future, and even now, historians will be using digital writings as primary sources.

Should we have a backup of this archive somewhere, before people start "removing" their own posts, etc?

Re:Should USENET be considered as historic value?

[artemis67]

The scary part is that many people (including myself) have posted many, MANY messages to USENET, not realizing that 20 years later those same messages would be staring us back in the face.

Many tech employers do a web search of candidates they are considering hiring... in many cases, it tells you a lot more about the person than the person is willing to reveal in the formal interview process. At least on a web page of your own creation you have the ability to tear it down and recreate it as you see fit. Newsgroups are forever. If you posted strong opinions to a political forum or to a religious forum under your own name (probably before you realized there were spambots or USENET archives), then those messages will very heavily influence that HR person's opinion of you.

Similarly, there are many support groups on USENET. People with medical problems have posted to medical support groups in good faith. Granted, you already know that you are posting private information in a public forum, but probably nobody who does expects to see it archived for all eternity and for the curious to be able to pull it up decades later.

I did a little vanity surfing on Google's USENET archives, and it was both amusing and frightening. Amusing because it was a voice from the past reminding me exactly of who I was at the time. Frightening because there are many posts where I express a strong point-of-view.

Bear in mind, also, that the logistics of maintaining a recent 6 month archive of newsgroups back in 1995 was daunting for any ISP; I never dreamed that the entire USENET would be archived from 1981 because the storage costs were enormous. Now we've reached a point where storage costs are trivial.

OTOH, I can imagine what a tremendous resource this will be for future generations doing geneological research... but only partially so. Much of the internet community has wised up and now only post under psuedonyms.

-----

Re:Should USENET be considered as historic value?

[rusti999]

Interesting remark. There are efforts already to preserve computer hardware from ages past (look at the National Museum of American History and the Computer Museum). But I'm not aware of any efforts to preserve computer software. Or at least the software hasn't been given as much emphasis as the hardware. This can be started with the preservation of USENET materials. Other stuff that I can think of: the source code of the original PDP/11 UNIX and Linux. Hopefully, as time goes on, companies will be willing to donate the source code of their obsolete commercial software.

Re:Should USENET be considered as historic value?

[KingSchlong]

Try here.

Re:Should USENET be considered as historic value?

[Ryu2]

Any employer that bases their opinion of you based on something you posted years ago is probably so shortsighted/clueless themselves that I would not want to work for them.

Re:Should USENET be considered as historic value?

[jallen02]

Easy to say until you really need a job..

Jeremy

Re:Should USENET be considered as historic value?

[NMerriam]

Any employer that bases their opinion of you based on something you posted years ago is probably so shortsighted/clueless themselves that I would not want to work for them

Unless that "something" was a question about a serious medical condition.

Someone posting to alt.support.aids in 1992 probably didn't expect it to be information that an employer would accidentally stumble across a decade later.

Re:Should USENET be considered as historic value?

[Trepidity]

Wow, I did that as well, and while I didn't post anything I'm particularly ashamed of (I mainly posted in Offspring newsgroups - the band), it's weird seeing posts of mine from 5 years ago. Not only can't I remember posting most of them, a lot of them don't even sound like something I'd write...

Re:Should USENET be considered as historic value?

[CritterNYC]

Many tech employers do a web search of candidates they are considering hiring... in many cases, it tells you a lot more about the person than the person is willing to reveal in the formal interview process.

Of course, one should always take what one finds on USENET with a grain of salt. There are several posts on USENET that were forged by someone trying to mess with me years ago. They weren't posted by me, but in the Google Archive, look like they were.

Re:Should USENET be considered as historic value?

[WhyCause]

Hell, that's exactly how I feel about some of my slashdot posts. Sometimes, I read them and think, "damn, I sound like I know what the hell I'm talking about." Scary feeling, that.

Re:Should USENET be considered as historic value?

[mj6798]

Many people say that, but unless you included your full name in the 'From' field and you have a remarkably uncommon name, those 20 year old posts will never be seen by any HR guys.

I have a remarkably uncommon name. In fact, if you search for my last name on USENET, almost all the posts you see will be by me or will quote something by me. So, what do I do now? I participated in those discussions in good faith with the understanding that these were temporary discussion groups. Even though I have never posted a flame, I don't think Google has the right to drag them up 20 years later.

Re:Should USENET be considered as historic value?

[KernelHappy]

Bleh forget your old posts, embarassment is part of reflection of youth. Its googles reverse phone number search that irks me. They have an option to remove your number from their database, I just wish I could remove just the address portion.

Re:Should USENET be considered as historic value?

[Rentar]

Much of the internet community has wised up and now only post under psuedonyms.

First of all I'd not confuse Internet with Usenet. Discussions on Internet Forums are generally of much lesser quality than in many Usenet-groups. (with exceptions, as allways). Additionally there are parts of the Usenet where a Real Name is still considered to be an important part in the From:-Header-Field. (like the entire de.* and at.* hierarchies (that is almost the entire german-speaking part of the Usenet)) Of course you can put any name you want in there, but most regulars really use the real name.

Re:Should USENET be considered as historic value?

[Cato]

There is a lot of archived software available, e.g. various PDP-11 UNIX source code is collected at http://minnie.tuhs.org/PUPS/ (The PDP-11 Unix Preservation Society). Emulators are a big reason why this software can be more easily preserved (e.g. you can run V7 UNIX on a Linux box), although there are of course some dedicated people who keep the old hardware running.

Re:Should USENET be considered as historic value?

[artemis67]

Here's a hypothetical situation for ya:

As is often the case, an employer may have to choose one person out of several qualified candidates available. Any one of them (including yourself) could fill the spot, based on their resumes.

Now let's suppose the employer is black, does some searching on you, and found some racial slurs in a heated message thread 15 years ago when you were just a punk kid. You realized right after you posted those messages that someone had pushed all your buttons and you said something you wished you hadn't said, but the employer doesn't know that.

Do you honestly think that it would have no bearing on the hiring decision?

The employer now has three things to judge you on... the resume sitting in front of him; the personal interview; and now some messages that paint you as a racist. The conscious mind says, "That happened 15 years ago, I can't judge him on that"; the unconscious mind says, "Screw that bastard, there's three other good candidates here."

-----

Microsoft promises

[deander2]

I find it interesting that the very first mention of Microsoft talks about what they've promised in a future release of their software. :-)

additionally, they are
going to add a fair amount of hardware error recovery (bad block
handling, parity and power fail interrupts, etc.), as well as record
handling, shared data segments, synchronous writing, improved
interprocess communications, networking, and languages: Pascal, BASIC,
FORTRAN, and COBOL.

Wow, if they add all that, it sounds like it would be just what their customer needs!

Take a look at the first spamming

[antis0c]

If only spammers still left all of their personal information in a signature :)

Re:Does Google ever get slashdotted?

[MisterBlister]

Google is a real website, not the homesite of some hacker with too much free time and access to some cool electronic parts.

While Slashdot has a formidable user base, I'm sure the Slashdot Effect barely registers compared to the mountains of traffic google gets every minute of every day. It is, after all, the #1 Search Engine.

Google has very intelligent people working for it and they have done an excellent job of keeping the site light and responsive!

Waiting until 1997!

[deander2]

The release date for us humans that want to see it is
still the summer of 1983. I guess it takes that long to score
all the music, do all the film-editing, prepare all the promo
material, and all that junk.

I wish Lucas & Co. would get the thing going a little faster.
I can't really imagine waiting until 1997 to see all nine parts
of the Star Wars series.

MAN! It's 2002 almost - and we only have 4 of them out! Anyone care to predict when all 9 will be available on SuperVH-DVDRUS holographic cubes? Remember, do not think about the movie plot outside the specified viewing time or MS-AOL-DISNEY-AT&T-USGOV-TIME-WARNER will zap your brain for violating the DRM EULA!

Re:Waiting until 1997!

[dimator]

Actually, hasn't Lucas said that there will only be 6 of them, not 9? I guess that's for the best; I'd rather have the good movie/shitty movie ratio be 1/1 than 1/2.

I'm being serious here...

[thilmony]

It's a shame we are all here on Slashdot and not alt.slashdot - think how this will be lost someday when Va Linux or whatever they are called today shuts it's doors...

Re:I'm being serious here...

[zmooc]

Without it's centrally-controlled frontpage and the moderation-system, /. would never have grown as large as it is now so alt.slashdot wouldn't have been nearly as interesting as slashdot.org. The strength of usenet is also it's problem; by making it open to everyone there's also no central control left.

Here's the Link to Posts of "American Taliban"

[Redking]

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=doodoo@hooked.ne t&hl=en

Interesting to say the least!

rk,

Re:Andy vs Linus

[joshsisk]

Even better is his comment right below that, if Linus were his student, he'd have given LINUX a poor grade.

And, yes, I know the parent is redundant. Sorry.

with tremendous fortune...

[GodSpiral]

with tremendous fortune, I've never said anything horribly stupid or incriminating on Usenet, under my real name.

That you could be held accountable for things that you thought dropped off the end of a bbs server into nothingness after about one week, is scary.

Ego Surf

[topham]

Nothing like ego surfing old messages... you get to find out how smart you were/are/weren't.

Re:Ego Surf

[tie_guy_matt]

Yes, we all know we did it. I bet we all had that thread (or threads) that we look back at now and think, "How could I be so stupid, so immature, so... so.. what was I thinking." You can also check out friends and family members. For me it was rather sad. I found where someone posted the news that my father had died. I had no idea he was that active on newsgroups.

Linux versions

[Dyolf Knip]

Hahaha..

From: Vincent Weaver (weave@Glue.umd.edu)
Subject: NT 5.0
Newsgroups: um.wam
Date: 1997/11/18

I just saw at www.slashdot.org (an intersting news site) that it was
announced at Comdex that Windows NT 5.0 won't be shipping until 1999. I
find that sort of amusing. Linux will probably be at revision 3.0 by then
;) Seriously though. Often when I complain about a NT4.0 "feature" I get
told "just wait 5.0 will have that fixed and more..." but I guess MS is
falling behind...

Anyone have a slightly more revised estimate?

Re:Linux versions

[zmooc]

Had Linux chosen the same version-numbering-system as Windows, it would even have been at 4.x. Instead Linux chose to do 1.0->1.2->2.0->2.2.

Writing done proper

[crivens]

Did anyone else notice how well those posts were written? No "teh", no "ur", no using the number eight to represent the sound of "ate" and no "all your base are belong to us" comments?

Re:Writing done proper

[glwtta]

Wonder if we could find the first use of "teh" on there.... now that's a milestone!

Re:Writing done proper

[NeuroManson]

That's easily explained by the act that most people prior to 1995 were college educated, and at the very least above 18... Most folks around that time were, amongst other things, expected to have some semblance of a level of literacy... Consider too, that people who could afford a computer, as well as net access, were as most would call it by the economic standards at the time "rich"... Nobody thinks about how commonplace computers have become, or how much such has been taken for granted... Now anyone below average intelligence can easily obtain even the most basic of computing equipment...

And before anyone comments, I learned reading phonetically in the early 70's, and typing was self taught on a typewriter (you younguns wouldn't know of such, it used paper, and *you* were the printer, prone to jamming, often a clunky process with lots of whiteout and smudging)...;)

Re:Writing done proper

[foobar104]

That's easily explained by the act that most people prior to 1995 were college educated, and at the very least above 18... Most folks around that time were, amongst other things, expected to have some semblance of a level of literacy.

also b4 95 not as mny ppl had carpal tunnel probs.

Re:Writing done proper

[bonzoesc]

That's because we didn't have Lowtax and his merry men to teach us to speak like retards.

First Derek Smart post - scroll down to see the first anti-Derek Smart flame.

Re:Writing done proper

[FFFish]

First "teh" ... surprisingly, Jerry Pournelle, in Space digest V2#108.

First true Usenet post using "teh" -- a post to rec.cook, about brewing, "When the must is cool, (70 - 75 degrees F) add teh pectic enzyme and wine yeast."

Re:Writing done proper

[IntlHarvester]

Consider too, that people who could afford a computer, as well as net access, were as most would call it by the economic standards at the time "rich"...

Bullshit. Usenet had a huge set of bitterly defended traditions which encouraged a good signal/noise ratio. People posted with their real names and their companies and job titles. The culture was very small, and moronic posts were silently noted.

What's taken over is the tradition of the BBS scene (many of whom managed to afford computers and still come off like idiots). Noise happens for the sake of noise. Most people post with handles and throwaway addresses and can't be identified, and are therefore more likely to flame, troll, misspell, misthink, and say Me Too.

However, the old guard will probably have the last laugh as everyone forgets about news. Usenet currently has a significantly better SN ratio than webboards like Slashdot for example.

Re:Writing done proper

[singularity]

I take exception to the statement about the BBS scene. Later BBSs may have been like that, but most of the BBSs I frequented in the early 90's (1991-1993) were populated usually by fairly well spoken people. Yes, teenagers, myself included, made up a large part of that population, but most of them had nothing to gain by being stupid with their computers. Most of them had shown intelligence and initiative in getting their computers online.

If anything, they wanted to continue showing off that intelligence. It was a way for geeks to get together. In high school, this was huge.

Re:Writing done proper

[foonf]

Wonder if we could find the first use of "teh" on there.... now that's a milestone!

One thing you want to consider is the release of Microsoft Word 6.0 in (IIRC) 1994. That was the release that pioneered the "autocorrect" feature which, by default, converts "teh" to "the". So, tens of millions of people who began using computers after that began using "teh" without even realizing it. This "feature" is so ubiquitous now that even my IRC client (xchat) supports it.

That, of course, would be the beginning of its prevalence, not of its use. It is something that has been happening, for sure, since the introduction of the qwerty keyboard in the 19th century (to slow down typists and prevent jams...).

How to?

[FFFish]

...How to find the very first posts of a newsgroup? As in, how does one track down the first post to alt.sex? (I suspect it's the mkgroup command... so maybe I'll want to see the first dozen posts to alt.sex...)

Wish I could remember my student ID from a dozen years ago...

Re:How to?

[FFFish]

Perhaps this works: it's Gene's announcement that he's gone off and created the group...

Creation of Alt.Sex

Goodness, what unnecessary controversy!

Re:How to?

[FFFish]

LOL! I think I found the first "typical" alt.sex message ... after a bunch of admin messages and cries that the world would come to an end if the group were propagated, and so on... we get the first posting from someone talking about sex, and he gets flamed to death immediately!

=======

In article RONIE@cup.portal.com writes:
>I had What is called wet dreams when I
>was younger. If I was dreaming of a
>sexual encounter and I actually put
>it into the woman in the dream I would
>cum in my pants. I always woke up just
>then.

[35 lines of my entire follow-up to Elizabeth A Lear's article deleted]

That's very nice. I am glad you told us this. We really, REALLY care.
But why the fuck didn't you (a) SIGH your article, (b) make sure that the
quotes included in your article are somehow bracketed and (c) delete or
attribute *MY* article?!

Please learn how to use your editor and your NEWS reader. If it helps, I
will e-mail VI short reference guides, RN news reader sources and references
to widely available books that teach how to use VI and NEWS to RONIE, other
PORTAL users who insist on their inability to use a NEWS reader and editors
and, more important, the PORTAL management and administration.

"No regrets, no apologies" -- Ronald Reagan

Oleg KiselevARPA: lcc.oleg@seas.ucla.edu, oleg@gryphon.cts.com
(213)337-5230UUCP:...!{trwrb|ucla-cs}!lcc!oleg

DISCLAIMER: I speak for myself only.

Macintosh idea about fifteen years early...

[singularity]

From this post:

I must strongly protest the discussed removal of the Macintosh related groups. I use the groups for my WORK which, among other things, involves looking into the feasiblity of using the Macintosh as an inexpensive graphics terminal IN THE UNIX ENVIRONMENT.


Add about fifteen years, and you have Apple putting the Mac look-and-feel on top of a *nix core.

I really wish Google would add a "First mention" search button, or at least allow you to reverse the order of display.

Re:Slashdot Sucks (No Really)

[david duncan scott]

Don't know. Would it help if I said that we all hate you?

Challenger Post

[skroz]

It seems that everyone from my parents' generation believes that Kennedy's assasination was the "defining" point of their generation. Other notable events like Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima, the Hindenberg, and the Apollo landing were important and extremely emotional events for other Americans of different generations. People from that time remember not only the events, but where they were, who they were talking to... even the clothes they were wearing and other seemingly unimportant details. We're all familar with the phenomenon. These events had impact.

For the "current" generation, those people that are children now, September 11th and Oklahoma City will likely be such defining events. The impact is staggering in the mind, and children today will realize the impact more heavily than those that are appreciably older or younger.

For me, that defining moment, that point that will always stick with me, was the Challenger disaster. I remember every detail of the moments surrounding the explosion, and even the briefest mention of those events brings those memories back in force.

That usenet posting, a simple pure description of what one person knew just moments after the explosion, brought it all back more clearly than ever before. Any footage I see today is part of a documentary, any account is a recollection by someone remembering something that happened 15 years ago. But that post was pure. There was no commentary before or after about what it meant, and it was untainted by reflection or further consideration. It just showed what one person knew.

I won't go on to talk about the importance of the internet or compare it to other media; there are other forums for that. But I can say only that I appreciate what google has done by capturing and bringing back a real history of the last 20 years.

Re:Challenger Post

[skroz]

Well, yes and no. I wasn't commenting about the event, really. I was commenting about the post.

Re:Challenger Post

[crisco]

Yeah, I was just thinking that the Challenger event didn't affect me so much, but then I went and read the post from the timeline and had chills down my back.

I think you're right.

First Usenet post from an AOL account

[oni]

That should read "First Usenet post from someone *admitting* to having an AOL account"

the list is incomplete

[kemster]

This list is nice, but incomplete. It would nice to see a *COMPLETE* "Great Moments in Usenet History" list, including:

First alt.binaries porn image

Birth of alt.wesley.crusher.die.die.die

First use of the word "pr0n"

First appearance of "31337"

First reference to Bill Gates as the anti-christ.

I'm sure my list is incomplete as well, but it's a start.

Re:Kibo?

[Reid]

I actually went to college with the guy. He was a nerd's nerd, very skilled: intelligent, creative, bizarre. Also, top notch at self-promotion. His rise to internet notoriety was inevitable.

Hey Kibo, if you're reading this, remember that first Sun lab in the JEC?

SPISPOPD

[shogun]

Oi the first mention about SPISPOPD (Smashing Pumpkins Into Small Piles Of Putrid Debris) in comp.sys.pc.games.action isn't listed! For any old school gamers its a significant event. I've been searching the google archive lately for it though, and can't actually find the first post about it, anyone out there had any luck?

Re:SPISPOPD

[FFFish]

Is this it?

Try this, too.

Re:SPISPOPD

[Russ Nelson]

This is truly embarrassing, but even though I remember typing spispopd many time, I don't remember which game it was in. Nor, for that matter, did I ever know what it stood for. Thanks!
-russ

Re:SPISPOPD

[shogun]

Cool! Yeah I think that it! So we can finally credit blask@gpx01.d39.lilly.com whoever that is to starting it all.

Re:SPISPOPD

[bonzoesc]

I never knew what it stood for when I typed it in, either. It was the noclip code in Doom, replaced by CLIP in Doom II. Both codes were prefixed with ID.

So, Have you stopped beating your wife?

[neema]

"Because you can't see the person who is sending you electronic mail you are sometimes uncertain whether they are serious or joking. Recently, Scott Fahlman at CMU devised a scheme for annotating one's messages to overcome this problem. If you turn your head sideways to look at the three characters :-) they look sort of like a smiling face. Thus, if someone sends you a message that says "Have you stopped beating your wife?:-)" you know they are joking."

And then you answer "Yep, I gave a break to her since she's still choking on her blood. ;-)"

And then you both have a huge laugh.

Man, people from the 80s are weird.

Re:So, Have you stopped beating your wife?

[ShieldWolf]

This brings up an interesting point about prior art and trademarks/patents. You could do a search through the archives to find the first occurence of something. Isn't there a company out there that was trying to trademark :-)? I seem to recall a story a while back.

-Shieldwolf

Re:So, Have you stopped beating your wife?

[Macrobat]

The "Have you stopped beating your wife" question is a classic no-win paradox based on verbal ambiguity that goes back at least to the 1930s, probably earlier. If you say "yes," that means you had been beating her at some point in the past. If you say "no," it means you haven't stopped--and are therefore guilty of domestic abuse. The unstated third option is "no, because I never started," but the questioner typically demands a simple yes-or-no response.

The fact that it is a Bad Thing to admit is part of the poignancy of the paradox, since our perceptions of truth are, in law (and in every other walk of life), tainted by the very way we ask questions. This example was most likely used because geeks are into verbal and logical paradoxes, not because they like to make light of domestic violence.

(On a related note, if I make a joke about Schrodinger's cat, it doesn't mean I think animal cruelty is funny. It's just a shared piece of geek culture that I'm sure a lot of Slashdotters would recognize.)

Re:So, Have you stopped beating your wife?

[Kidder]

That was Despair, Inc., who trademarked the frowny face :-( for greeting cards, calendars, etc. You can find some (humorous) details here.

Re:Kibo?

[halk]

All is cleared by reading the FAQ.

Re:Does Google ever get slashdotted?

[rodgerd]

Google uses over 8000 Linux systems distributed over (4? 6?) geographically and topologically diverse locations.

Google's engineers know their shit. They probably barely notice a visit from /.

Second post from AOL

[Col. Klink (retired)]

They missed this milestone, the second post from AOL:

From: aluser@aol.com (aluser@aol.com)
Subject: Re: Is America Online Connected to the Internet or Not?
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Date: 1992-05-05 13:45:06 PST

> I have read many postings about America Online and the Internet in
> this newsgroup. Since some of the information has been not quite
> right I figured I should make a posting to clear up any misconseptions
> that might exist. There is an America Online gateway to Internet. It
> is now going into 'open' beta testing. To send mail to an America
> Online, Promenade or PC-Link user you need to know the user's screen
> name. The only way to get a user's screen name is to contact them by
> other means (ie there is no name server). Once you know a user's
> screen name remove any spaces, make it lower case, and append
> @aol.com. For example to send to the screen name A User you would
> address your mail to auser@aol.com.
>
> To send mail from America Online to the Internet you simply put the
> Internet address in the To: field on the regular mail form. In a
> previous post the question was posed as to whether or not there are
> 'special' gateways for Compuserve, MCI Mail etc. The answer is no,
> there are not. For some of the more popular services abbreviations
> have been created; for example to send to a Compuserve user you can
> use the address 123.4567@cis. Additional information can be found on
> America Online by using the keyword InetBeta. There is no additional
> charge for using the Internet mail gateway. Mail is limited to around
> 27k bytes in both directions. If you notice any problems with this
> gateway please send mail to inetbeta1@aol.com from the Internet or
> inetbeta from America Online.
>
>
> George Browning Programmer/Analyst gbrowning@aol.com
>
> ** BETA TEST MAIL Report bugs to INetBeta1@aol.com **

me too

Re:Second post from AOL

[laserjet]

classic... i remember those days. Some threads got REALLY bad with a string of 20 "me too"s posted by various AOLers. Then there were the classsic AOL debates, where someone would state what a bunch of retards AOLers were, then they would get into a flamefest.

it may be stereotyping, but back in those days, AOLers as a whole were "not quit up there" with the other folks on the net.

Re:Kibo?

[pgpckt]

That is the most unclear FAQ in all of history. Perhaps something that actually answers questions?

Hacker's Dictionary following (long!)

[astrosmash]

The earliest Hacker's Dictionary Posting, compiled by Compiled by Guy L. Steele Jr., Raphael Finkel, Donald Woods, and Mark Crispin.

Not sure who posted it, some guy named hansen, I guess (houxs!hansen). They had pretty wacky email addresses back then. What's up with that?

Re:Hacker's Dictionary following (long!)

[FFFish]

Earliest use of IANAL

Oldest first

[DaoudaW]

Yah, I went there too when Slashdot carried the story.

The thing that bugged me is they were emphasizing first posts and asking for additional topics to add to their timeline, but they didn't have an "oldest first" sort option. (Like Slashdot...)

Re:Oldest first

[Amazing Quantum Man]

I know. I wound up doing binary searches for the first post of whatever (I found the Church of the SubGenius -- FWIW, it was signed by Andy Tannenbaum!).

Re:Kibo?

[FFFish]

You might as well be asking how God is, why he is infamous, or why he is such a big deal.

Speaking of which, why do you want to know how kibo is?

"Teh"

[jspey]

The first use of the not-word "teh":

...conference at teh Hyatt Los ... , from the fa.space group.

Mr. Spey

Kibology

[stox]

Kibology predates alt.religion.kibology by quite some time. Find the first postings to alt.religion.subgenius, for a true beginning. James "Kibo" Perry was quite a presence back then, along with the legendary Henry Spencer from utzoo.

Re:Kibology

[Amazing Quantum Man]

I submitted the SubGenius to the Usenet archive email address.

Here it is, though I'm sure there's a much smaller link for it.

First proto copy protection post

[the_2nd_coming]

From: MOUSEKETEER (12588)
Subject: RE: Copy Perversion Hall of Shame (Re: Msg 12585)
Date: 8-SEP-20:43: Bugs & Features

I've tried my best to avoid Copy Perverted software, but I have a few around.
My own gripe is Think Educational Software for MacEdgeII, a program for drills
in math, etc. I would think that a program which is best used by sitting the
kid in front of the Mac for an hour or so to fend for himself would be easily
backed up. Kids do the darndest things, after all, and can erase a disk at
twenty feet by looking at it sideways. This sucker is so rigged, though, that
making a copy is very difficult (i.e. you need H D Utility), and the program
still only gives you the choice to "Eject" rather than "Quit", meaning a full
shutdown.

I guess you have to look at it from their standpoint, though. I expect there
are millions of little kids out there with Macs...."Hey, Bobby, wanna copy of
this nifty math study program? Boy, talk about fun!"

;-)
Alf

P.S. While we are on the subject, I noted today in the GMUGazette (St. Louis
Gateway Area Mac Users Group) that after reprinting an article title "Freeing
Excel" which gave the patch for a particular MS program, it was pointed out
to them that "to defeat copy protection, even for registered owners, is
illegal."

If only they knew :-/

the FIRST MS bash that includes Bill Gates in it.

[the_2nd_coming]

The edlin editor remains a classic of cruftiness. It still crashes on
files without carriage returns. In the same article Bill Gates said:
"There's really a lot of dirty software on the market now; we'll have to
educate the developers about how to write better software." Judging by
DOS 2.0, edlin, and Microsoft Pascal, it would appear that Microsoft
will have to look outside their organization for suitable teachers.

they knew MS made crapy software back then too!!!!

First use of "teh"

[grepMeister]

It seems there's not a single article indexed from 1981 that contains "teh" -- the earliest that comes up in a search is as follows:

Message-ID: <anews.Aucbvax.6208> Newsgroups: fa.space
X-Path: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!space
From: ucbvax!space
Date: Thu Feb 18 03:58:17 1982
Subject: SPACE Digest V2 #108
X-Google-Info: Converted from the original A-News header


>From OTA@S1-A Thu Feb 18 03:27:49 1982

SPACE Digest
Volume 2 : Issue 108

[Ed. cut many lines of geeky space banter]

Date: 15 February 1982 03:59-EST
From: Jerry E. Pournelle <POURNE at MIT-MC>
Subject: Lunar colony and SPS plan
To: REM at MIT-MC
cc: SPACE at MIT-MC

The L-5 Society, using member talent including Dr. David Criswell and other lunar experts, plus SUNSAT people, plus some architects, plus human fctors types, will begin a "Project Deadalus"-like design of a Lunar colony as part of the L-5 Space Citizens conference at teh Hyatt Los Angeles Airport over weeken of 2-4 April.

What's interesting about this isn't just that it was posted by Jerry Pournelle, but also that he manages to leave the 'd' off of "weekend" and the "teh" after "over." Among other glaring tyops. Of course, it was four in the morning.

Wow. Goodbye Nethack, hello prehistoric USENET archives...

BOFH/AOL connection

[pete-classic]

Hmm, the first BOFH immediately follows the first AOL post.

Coincidence? You decide.

-Peter

PS: Please feel free to not post "BOFH is about an operator, and since you obviously don't even know what a real computer was in those days . . .".

-P

What about b1ff?

[bani]

... those were truly classic, groundbreaking posts ...

BTW has anyone ever positively identified b1ff?

JMS and B5 discussions?

[Lumpish Scholar]

I couldn't find the earliest J. Michael Straczynski postings about Babylon 5. I see some articles from 1992, but they sound as if he's been there for quite some time already.

I am really glad to see these (in particular, and many others in general) available again!

(P.S.: I always tried to live by a policy of being the most reasonable person in any discussion, especially online. Thank goodness; I don't appear to have any past sins to worry about from this newly available archive.)

Re:People really need to stop predicting the futur

[d5w]

People really need to stop predicting the future

They will.

Re:World Wide Web

[Sludge]

Like mine? :)

Yay! Prior Art!

[Zeinfeld]

I just found prior art on three patents currently in litigation.

I wonder if we can force the USPTO to look at the USENET archive?

Bang-path addressing

[hearingaid]

They had pretty wacky email addresses back then. What's up with that?

UUCP email specified the full route. The email address of the poster, in full, was: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!mhtsa!ihnss!houxi!houxs!hansen which means this:

The news server this message was retrieved from is utzoo. The message came to utzoo from decvax, and from there from ucbvax, and from there from mhtsa, and from there from ihnss, and from there from houxi, and from there from houxs which was directly connected in some manner to hansen (perhaps hansen is a user on houxi; the important thing though is that houxi knows what hansen is).

so, if you want to send hansen email, and you're currently using ucbvax, then you send email to mhtsa!ihnss!houxi!houxs!hansen for example. If you're on a system that isn't in the bang-path, then you have to know the way to a system that is.

This is why MX-type Internet email got very popular very fast. However, sendmail still supports UUCP delivery, though most sane people compile it out.

Re:Kibo?

[ktakki]

Kibo was the first net.god.

He would grep the local Usenet spool for mentions of his name and add a message to the relevant thread, giving him the appearance of omniscience.

Read the net.legends FAQ for the whole story.

k., Reformed Kibologist.

Re:Writing done properLY

[IntelliTubbie]

pot = kettle = black

Cheers,
IT

Best treasure I've found so far...

[Russ Steffen]

would have to be this, a posting of remarks by a certain US Senator John Ashcroft. Included in his comments are a plea to lift the ban on the export of strong crypto from the US, that US Citizens should always have the right to use strong crypto free from government key escrow, and that laws pertaining to copyrights and the internet must balance the needs of content creators with the rights of end users.

Man, 1997 was a different world.

Re:Best treasure I've found so far...

[aridhol]

If, by some amazing chance, you actually get a response, please post it, be it on Slashdot, Usenet, a webpage, or something else. And, of course, let us all know where it is.

RMS on GNU... where have we gone?

[ajs]

I found RMS' GNU article interesting:

To begin with, GNU will be a kernel

...Hurd still in the works...

plus all the utilities needed to write and run C programs: editor[ EMACS], shell[bash], C compiler [GCC, probably GNU's largest contribution to the world], linker [GNU ld, an undersung hero], assembler, and a few other things. After this we will add a text formatter [groff, another great program, a YACC [bison], an Empire game [heh, who could have forseen where we'd end up], a spreadsheet [Anyone remember sc?], and hundreds of other things. We hope to supply, eventually, everything useful that normally comes with a Unix system, and anything else useful, including on-line and hardcopy documentation.

GNU will be able to run Unix programs, but will not be identical to Unix. We will make all improvements that are convenient, based on our experience with other operating systems. In particular, we plan to have longer filenames [heh], file version numbers [does any modern filesystem do this?], a crashproof file system [many years later, but it wasn't GNU that did it], filename completion perhaps [built into the shell], terminal-independent display support, and eventually a Lisp-based window system through which several Lisp programs and ordinary Unix programs can share a screen [I sense a bias ;-)]. Both C and Lisp will be available as system programming languages [The world might be a simpler place if those were the choices]. We will have network software based on MIT's chaosnet protocol [heard many good things about that, wonder how it compared to IP?], far superior to UUCP [double heh]. We may also have something compatible with UUCP [Honey-Dan-Ber UUCP was, of course, free].

It's interesting to look back through this post. UNIX has come a long way (baby....)

Re:RMS on GNU... where have we gone?

[ajs]

I've admined VMS, which is why I asked if any "modern OSes" allowed for such a thing.

Cluepon!

[shogun]

And for those in need of a clue the earlier Cluepon can be found here

What about Al Gore

[bareminimum]

Still looking for Al Gore's original post, the one where he presents his blueprints for the Internet.

No mention of Meow????

[Mr. Neutron]

How can any list of Usenet milestones not document the beginning of the Meow fiasco on alt.fan.karl-malden.nose in early 1996?

I'm offended.

Re:An Excellent Resource

[Plutor]

Nice troll, that's not the link to the first Slashdot mention of Google. If the moderators would pay attention and do their job, they'd notice its something completely different.

This is the link you're looking for.

Re:COOL

[scott1853]

Somewhat cool. It's not inventive though. Asking people for copies of their old logs so they can add them to their logs just isn't that creative. And what are you really going to lookup that's been posted more than 5 years ago? Aside from helping out college research papers, it's pointless.

The first AYB

[MajroMax]

The first "all your base are belong to us" reference:

From Zero Wing intro: Mechanic: "Somebody set up us the bomb!" Captain: "Main screen turn on" Cats: "All your base are belong to us"

In a post by "Vision" to 3dfx.products.voodoobanshee on Dec. 11, 1999.

First mention of Kevin Mitnick

[prototype]

I decided to go hunting for noteworthy appearances in Usenet history myself and found this posting:

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=12454946187 .2 1.NEUMANN%40KL.SRI.COM

It's the first mention of Kevin Mitnick I can find (1986) but I know he was poking around before then. Anyone find anything earlier?

liB

Re:Kibo?

[Actual Kibo]

Reid wrote:
> Hey Kibo, if you're reading this, remember that first Sun lab in the JEC?

Of course. It arrived the same summer as Podular, if I recall correctly.

I even remember being almost banned from that PAWL lab because I thought the "PAWL##.pawl.rpi.edu" names were boring so I made up names for all 23 machines and slapped stickers on them when nobody was around just to see if they'd get adopted. (I couldn't decide what naming scheme to use, so I named a third of the machines after science-fiction novelists, a third after cartoon sound effects, and I forget about the other third.)

Google even has a few of the posts I made from PAWL17 and PAWL23 and so on, plus a small fraction of the ones from MTS and Brazil. In late 1988 or possibly late 1987, Brazil was the first machine I used for Usenet access (RPI-ACM's 3B2) and then later it was the PAWLs and Sandro's *Forum-to-Usenet gateway. It was sometime during those years (probably around '87 or '88) that Mark-Jason Dominus (most likely, unless it was Todd McComb) said "There should be Kibology!" while we were at China Pagoda, and little did he realize that I was going to base the rest of my life on those four words. (Todd had a more concise, two-word philosophy -- "You're allowed!" -- which also warped me for life.)

Before Usenet, I had a conference on MTS's *Forum named "Kibo", I recall. I don't have the nine-track tape archive any more, but some printouts do exist of some of the, um, what's the word for stuff that doesn't have any highlights?

I like to think of 1985-1988 (my *Forum and Bitnet years) and 1988-1991 (my pre-alt.religion.kibology Usenet years) as the period when my articles were never worth reading, as opposed to now when they're only MOSTLY never worth reading.

The Google archive is quite spotty for my early years. They don't have my first month's worth from alt.religion.kibology, and they seem to be confused between the first posting I made from Schenectady (12/91) and my first posts to a.r.k (11/91).

(Plus a lot of people seem to have assumed I wasn't posting before that, even though Google has some articles I posted in 1988.)

Amusingly, in Google's list of their choice of 20 points in Usenet history, they identify the 12/91 article as my first a.r.k post, but the same sentence links to a page displaying the actual first article. (The one with almost half an attempt at some sort of onomatopoesis referring to Gene Spafford for reasons I can't remember.)

But at least Google doesn't have any articles from that one week I had a giant sword in my .signature. I'm embarassed enough by the .signatures they DO have. You can even see the one I had before I realized I should only use .signatures ironically and made it 250 times longer. You can watch it grow! Although I don't know why anyone would want to.

I've been lucky enough to have the same E-mail address for over ten years, which also helps if you're actually trying to turn up my junk in the archive. The articles from before 1991 are harder to find because of all the weird permutations of Bitnet and UUCP addresses...

By the way, I don't read SlashDot.

-- K.

I like this one

[OblongPlatypus]

Andy Tanenbaum, in 1992:

5 years from now everyone will be running free GNU on their 200 MIPS, 64M SPARCstation-5.

They forgot the most important event:

[Andreas(R)]

The first mention of Slashdot
Slashdot back in 1997.

First "GNU/Linux" pre-dates RMS...

[Bazman]

Found this as the first reference to GNU/Linux.

Or maybe this one, which doesn't get the upper case GNU and seems more of an aside than an attempt to credit GNU properly...

When did RMS make his declaration on this subject?

Baz

Slashdot is Dying!

[Marcus Brody]

The evidence:

1. Unoriginal headlines!
2. Repeated Stories
3. VA Linux --> VA software
4. Editors dont even bother reading the homepage
5. Editors dont post anymore
6. Threats of subscription
7. Threats of more intrusive advertising

--and finally, the real killer--

8. The trolls are becoming really quite imaginitive, original and funny.

Seriously though, for every duplicate story i'm sure there is a real peach missed. /. really need to sort this out pronto. Even if the editors dont bother reading there own website, the could at least have the decency to search the archives from the last couple of weeks for duplicates before posting.

The Dead come back to life.

[Darth RadaR]

Whilst it's really cool to keep up the archives of usenet, but people can also post on these ancient threads. Look here and you'll see what I mean. An article posted on 10 Jun 1992 that is still getting replies. Damn, it's hard enough to kill meandering threads as it is already.

first usenet murder?

[peter303]

Those of us reading sci.reasearch.careers in 1990
were shocked when a disgruntled engineer
name Fabrikant complained about fellow faculty
stealing his ideas and blocking promotions.
A few weeks later he shot a couple of them to
death. Fabrikant wrote long rants in that newsgroup
before the murder and managed have someone post
additional ones from jail.

Google/Dejanews archive is incomplete

[Rog7]

Please remember that the Google archive adopted from Dejanews is not 100% complete.

The archive was assembled in 1995 and for years previous to that it is very incomplete indeed. You can see many disjointed threads and quotes of posts where the original post is nowhere to be found.

It's a good tool and certainly entertaining, but I find it a bit disturbing historical wise for people to be declaring "first post of..." as if it were a hard historical fact. It's not.

Re:Google/Dejanews archive is incomplete

[Nonesuch]

Yes, it is definitely incomplete. I recall threads from when I first got UUCP Usenet access back around 1991, but cannot find them in the archive.

I get the feeling that the original archive is missing much of the early history of the alt.* hierarchy, among other gaping holes.

You know...

[MrResistor]

...it never occured to me that Linus had a middle name...

Windows an OS?

[fm6]

Oh lord, here's the first reference to Windows.

From the same paper, one sees that the maker of the Hyperion PC compatible portable "intends to endorse Microsoft Windows, an operating system for personal computers made by Microsoft Inc. of Bellevue, Wash."

Now, you've often heard people quibble as to whether pre-NT Windows is a "real" OS, since it sits on top of DOS. The funny thing was that in 1983, not even MS called it an OS. It was "the DOS Presentation Manager."

Re:Kibo?

[b1t r0t]

They don't have my first month's worth from alt.religion.kibology, and they seem to be confused between the first posting I made from Schenectady (12/91) and my first posts to a.r.k (11/91).

If you do the right kind of search, you'll find that Google doesn't have any a.r.k posts before 1991/12/23, but that one of those first few articles quotes a message from 1991/12/22. I hope Google hasn't stopped looking for more articles, and that they simply decided they had enough to open them up to the public.

Searching for my own messages finds some wierdnesses, such as having two years between my first and second posts in alt.music.filk, and one of my earliest posts (from back when I still had a FidoNet BBS) got mis-filed into alt.missing-kids. (Fido echo-mail processors were called "tossers", and they often did end up tossing crap all over the place.)

I did try to find the first cross-posted-to-a.r.k Kibo troll, but couldn't. There's lots of stuff between 1991 and 1994 or so when I became a Kibologist. Lots of nice stuff in rec.pets, though. And just look how far you've gone since then--the Japanese even named a module of the space station in your honor!

You can even see the one I had before I realized I should only use .signatures ironically and made it 250 times longer.

I still have the 400dpi 11x17 color print I made of your 1 megabyte postscript .sig. I think the "regular" .sig you included in there in flyspeck Courier is actually readable at that size and resolution.

P.S.: beable

1989 Bay area earthquake

[vrmlguy]

I tried searching for info on the 1989 Bay area earthquake, but couldn't find any of the postings that I dimly recall from that time.

I particularly recall a description from someone living on a hillside. He was looking down at the mostly dark Bay, lit only by the eerie green glow of burning power transformers.

I think that it was posted in an alt newsgroup, and those don't seem to be nearly as well represented in the archives. A pity.

Re:false AOL sighting

[StenD]

What equipment? Quantum Computer ran two on-line servics, Q-Link (for Commodores) and PC-Link (with Tandy), and was developing a third, AppleLink. Instead (apparently due to a falling out between Apple and Quantum), Quantum named the new service "America Online". Two years later, they renamed the company. AOL Timeline

Re:Kibo?

[jms]

Here's my favorite Kibo post:

rec.music.gdead 1993-05-17 00:07:36 PST
cjmcdona@rodan.acs.syr.EDU (Crispin J. Mcdonald) writes:
> Q: What are they serving at the Waco Diner these days?
>
> A: Koreshkibobs.

I have no joke, I just like seeing my name mentioned in the same word as
Koresh.
-- Kibo

First "Mac sucks" and "Windows sucks" posts

[phillymjs]

Yes, I know this is a very late reply, but I'm extremely bored at work today.

The first Usenet post uttering the phrase "Windows sucks" appeared on October 8, 1986, less than one year after the November 20, 1985 ship date of Windows 1.0, but the first post containing "Mac sucks" did not appear until February 6, 1987, more than four years after the January 24,1984 ship date of the original Macintosh.

So not only did Microsoft beat Apple in this regard by being first, they also did it more than four times faster! Way to go, Bill and company! :-)

~Philly

D'oh! That's *three*...

[phillymjs]

years, and *three* times faster. Thank God it's Friday!

~Philly

Re:Wow, moderator abuse in action..

[On Lawn]

Your right, this is very extreme moderation abuse. Someone is either an admin and applying censorship, or they are someone who's hacked the moderation system big time.

I've talked to some of these guys and we all got moderated within one minute of each other, with a total of more tha 30 moderation points used. That is some intense scripting.