|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Back to ARPANET |
|
Next to BITNET
|
Usenet
- the “Poor Man’s ARPANET” -
Intro
- A
portmanteau of “user” and “network”
- A
worldwide discussion system
- The
first attempt to create a network beyond local BBS (Bulletin Board System)
communities (which themselves were fairly new)
- Made
open to the public unlike the ARPANET which is a private network
- Evolved
from the general purpose UUCP (Unix-to-Unix CoPy) architecture of the same name
- Users
read and post public messages (called articles or posts, and
collectively termed news) to one or more categories, known as newsgroups
What is Newsgroup?
- A
repository for messages posted from many users in different locations
- Technically
distinct but functionally similar to discussion forums on the World Wide Web
- Typically
focused on a particular topic
- Some
allow posting of messages on a wide variety of themes, regarding anything a
member chooses to discuss as on-topic, while others keep more strictly to their
particular subject, frowning on off-topic postings
- Much
like the public message boards on old bulletin board system
Usenet is Born
-
Late
1979 (shortly after the release of Version 7 Unix with UUCP)
- Two
Duke University graduate students, Tom
Truscott and Jim Ellis thought of the information exchange between computers
with the Unix community
- Steve Bellovin, a graduate of University
of North Carolina, put together the
first version of the news software using shell scripts and installed it on the
first two sites: “unc” and “duke” (University
of North Carolina and
Duke University)
- Beginning
of 1980
- Steve
Bellovin rewrote the scripts into C programs
- Steve
Daniel did another implementation in C for public distribution
- Truscott
made further modifications and the software became the “A” News release, which
is considered the first Usenet package
“B” News and Rapid Expansion
- 1981
- A
graduate and high school student of U.C. Berkeley rewrote the news software to
add functionality and to overcome the limitations of “a” News
- The
rewrite was the “B” News version
- The
news software was expanded and modified as the net grew
- 1983
- Usenet's
growth continued to exceed the expectations of developers and site operators
- More
servers and users led to disorder and chaos
- Gene
Spafford organized the "Backbone Cabal" to promote coordination
between Usenet hosts with regard to issues such as managing article
propagation, approving new newsgroups, and similar activities
- 1984
- Rick
Adams, at the Center
of Seismic Studies, took
over the coordination of the maintenance and enhancement of “B” News
- The
mechanism for moderated groups was added to the software
- Moderated
groups was inspired by ARPA mailing lists and experience with other bulletin
board systems
NNTP
- Mar
1986
- A
package was released implementing news transmission, posting and reading using
the Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP)
- Reading and posting are done using TCP/IP
messages to a server host which does run the Usenet software
- Many
of the Usenet hosts are exchanging news articles using NNTP because of the
lower load impact compared to UUCP
- NNTP
grew out of independent work in 1984-1985 by Brian Kantor at U.C. San Diego and
Phil Lapsley at U.C. Berkeley
- NNTP's
development led to newsreader clients that could be installed on a user's
personal computer and retrieve only the articles they wanted
- Helped
further reduce the operating costs for Usenet hosts
The Great Renaming
- There
were only 3 worldwide hierarchies before the Great Renaming:
- net.*
(for unmoderated groups)
- mod.*
(for moderated groups)
- fa.* (for groups originating from ARPANET)
- Adams,
Gene Spafford and other Cabal members proposed a reorganization of Usenet which
would expand the top-level hierarchies and standardize the naming of newsgroups
- Sought
to alleviate the difficulties associated with administering a loosely organized
Usenet
The Big Seven
- After
extensive discussion and argument, the "Big Seven” hierarchies were
created:
- misc.*:
Miscellaneous topics (misc.education, misc.forsale, misc.kids)
- comp.*:
computer-related discussions (comp.software, comp.sys.amiga)
- sci.*:
Science related discussions (sci.psychology, sci.research)
- soc.*:
Social discussions (soc.college.org, soc.culture.african)
- talk.*: Talk
about various controversial topics (talk.religion, talk.politics,
talk.origins)
- rec.*:
Recreation and entertainment (rec.music, rec.arts.movies)
- news.*:
Discussions and announcements about news (meaning Usenet, not current events) (news.groups,
news.admin)
- The
8th "Big" hierarchy, humanities.*
did not come into existence until after the initial Great Renaming
The alt.* hierarchy
- 1987
- A
major event tied to the Great Renaming was the creation of the alt.* hierarchy,
an event credited to Brian Reid,
Gordon Moffett and John Gilmore
- talk.*
hierarchy was to be used for all discussions of sensitive, controversial, or
otherwise taboo issues
- Because
talk.* was subject to the
Cabal's influence, any proposed newsgroup in the hierarchy had to be approved
before it was created
- Reid
and Gilmore shared their frustrations in person and decided that the best
solution would be to create a new hierarchy (alt.*), free from the Cabal's
influence, where any user with the technical know-how could create a newsgroup
- Made
available to any Usenet site but would be distinct from the "Big 7"
hierarchies of the Cabal
“C” News
- 1987
-
A news server package
- Co-developed
by University of Toronto staff members Henry Spencer
and Geoff Collyer
- Began
as the result of a bug in the B News program which inspired Henry Spencer to
completely rewrite the code
- Geoff
Collyer became interested in the core of B News, which, though still
functional, was inefficient
- The
two expanded the project to encompass an entirely new news server package
- Development
of the C News package continued into the mid '90s and included the creation of
NOV (News Overview), a new index which was implemented in 1992
InterNetNews (INN)
- 1991
- Designed
by Rich Salz to run on Unix hosts that have a socket interface
- Optimized
for larger hosts where most traffic uses NNTP, but it does provide full UUCP
support
- Publicly
released on August 20, 1992
- Able
to receive and distribute articles through a single long-running process
References
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Back to ARPANET |
|
Next to BITNET
|
|
|
