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== Usenet: Network News Free Speech Network ==

(303 words. Read time 2-3 minutes. Save and share!)

## Contents ##

1. Introduction
2. Ways to access Usenet
3. Links to Usenet hosts and software
4. Rough traffic count

Do you remember Network News, AKA Usenet? At over 40 years old, Usenet is the original 'social network'. Usenet is the oldest bastion of digital free speech networks.

Usenet is highly resistant to censorship. For decades Usenet has served as a free speech haven. It has also served as a platform for secure and anonymous messaging.

I suspect that many of GenY and GenZ have never heard of Usenet. We can change that. We can alert them to this censorship-resistant network as an alternative to highly censored social media.

## Ways to access Usenet ##

There are multiple ways to access Usenet:

- web front ends
- dedicated graphical clients
- dedicated terminal clients

## Links to Usenet hosts and software ##

Users can access Usenet to read and post by installing free client software or by visiting a host that provides web browser access.

* Free Forum front end for Usenet: https://novabbs.org

* Free Usenet servers list: https://sybershock.com/#usenet

* Free Usenet reader software:

- Thunderbird https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/
- Betterbird https://www.betterbird.eu/
- Claws Mail https://www.claws-mail.org/
- Sylpheed https://sylpheed.sraoss.jp/en/
- Seamonkey https://www.seamonkey-project.org/

## Rough traffic count ##

A few days ago when I counted, more than 16 thousand articles were posted in Usenet threads in a 24-hour period. I checked today as of a few minutes past midnight GMT, and almost 12 thousand articles were posted in the past 24-hour period. At this rate about 4.4 million articles would be posted in a single year.

Share this information with your friends!

#Usenet #NNTP #NetworkNews #SocialMedia #SocialNetworks #FreeSpeech #Censorship
Metal mechanical octopus with a computer monitor for its head holding a keyboard and smaller computers in its tentacles.

Betterbird. Simply better.

Betterbird. Simply better. A soft fork of Mozilla Thunderbird
Betterbird Project
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Heretical_i
Like nntp theres no intelligent life there anymore unless you bring it. @lamp @bookstodon @histodons @academicchatter @actuallyautistic @palestine
@lamp @bookstodon group @actuallyautistic @histodons group @AcademicChatter group @palestine
lamp
@bookstodon@a.gup.pe @histodons@a.gup.pe @academicchatter@a.gup.pe @actuallyautistic@a.gup.pe @palestine@a.gup.pe @infodump@a.gup.pe

Brains ... more ... brains ... ;)
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Heretical_i
Last time I looked at nntp 2 or 3 years ago it was 99% spam and adverts... But I repeat myself. I'm sure there are some newsgroups that aren't... But I didn't find them. Not even the tech oriented ones. The advent of a huge www made that sort of inevitable. Last time I used it functionally was when the comp.os9 newsgroup still existed... The 1990s. @lamp @bookstodon @histodons @academicchatter @actuallyautistic @palestine @infodump
@lamp @bookstodon group @actuallyautistic @histodons group @AcademicChatter group @palestine @infodump group
lamp
@bookstodon@a.gup.pe @histodons@a.gup.pe @academicchatter@a.gup.pe @actuallyautistic@a.gup.pe @palestine@a.gup.pe @infodump@a.gup.pe

comp.os.plan9 still exists. Some plan9 maintainers were recently discussing appointing a moderator for the group to get it active again. People are thinking about the 'missing moderator' problem and how to solve it. The discussion is in this thread:

https://news.novabbs.org/usenet/article-flat.php?id=201&group=news.groups.proposals#201
"The MVI was prompted by one of the directors of the Plan 9 Foundation, who had written to the Board with the intention of reviving the newsgroup, perhaps via a bidirectional gateway to the 9fans mailing list. He suggested converting the group to unmoderated, but as this is a rather experimental solution, we proposed running an MVI, at least as a first step, to see if the group could remain moderated."
Some people want Usenet to die so they keep saying it is dead. Unfortunately a lot of people take them at their word and don't even bother to check it out. The ISC / Big8 Board is active again and taking care of business in the Big8 hierarchies. Some of us refuse to walk away from Usenet because we understand from experience that it has some features superior to all social networks, especially for decentralization and censorship avoidance. NNTP is simple compared to many 'modern' protocols and easily extended for custom applications.
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Heretical_i
Dunno what Plan9 is... OS9 was an optional os for tandy Color Computers developed by microware. A small footprint simple unix-like os that ran well on 6809 chips and multitasked. It even had a windows routine, MultiVue, for the COCO3 anyway. The manual came with all the C (no + or ++) for the windows s/w. @lamp @bookstodon @histodons @academicchatter @actuallyautistic @palestine @infodump
@lamp @bookstodon group @actuallyautistic @histodons group @AcademicChatter group @palestine @infodump group
imdat celeste :v_tg: :v_nb: :v_genderfluid: [witchzard]
@bookstodon @histodons @academicchatter @actuallyautistic @palestine @infodump Oh, OS9 - fond memories... I don't know what machine it was we were running OS9 on, back in 1988 or '89. What a beautiful OS. I think it was my first Unix-like OS I ever worked on. Beautiful!! 😍
@bookstodon group @actuallyautistic @histodons group @AcademicChatter group @palestine @infodump group
imdat celeste :v_tg: :v_nb: :v_genderfluid: [witchzard]
@bookstodon @histodons @academicchatter @actuallyautistic @palestine @infodump Well, I am old, or rather, old-er. My first time with computers was 1983 or so, when I got a Commodore VIC20, and then replaced it with a Commodore C64 - just a few weeks later.

The rest ... well, yeah, a bit of history (but, tbh, I was a teenager when first used a computer)
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Maple
@bookstodon @histodons @academicchatter @actuallyautistic @palestine @infodump

My first computer use was 1993 or possibly 1994.

I had a C64, we got it out of a dumpster in 1997.
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imdat celeste :v_tg: :v_nb: :v_genderfluid: [witchzard]
@bookstodon @histodons @academicchatter @actuallyautistic @palestine @infodump I guess, I can say that I developed software for so many different computers/OSes that I am a "computer globetrotter"

I started with the said VIC20, then C64, then Sinclair QL (😍), Atari ST, PDP11, PC XT/AT, 386 (DOS 3.2 - 5.x), CP/M, OS9, HP something-something (forgot), Custom/Inhouse OS on in-house hardware, Apple Macintosh (Classic), NeXT/OPENSTEP, SGI IRIX, Solaris, DEC Alpha/Unix, AIX, AUX, GEOS, Windows 3, Windows 95, Mac OSX, macOS, iOS, Android, Linux, *BSD, ...

... OMG! The list is really long, so long.

I'm pretty sure I also developed for Schneider CPC646, but don't remember the details.

But the best part was that the VIC20 was the only one where my father and his wife "supported" me in buying one. After that, it was always "do something on it, make small amount of money, sell it and get the next best one". My last fully purchased one was Atari 1040ST, after which I switched to Intel-based PCs at home, which I built myself from parts. As I said, it is history...
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Heretical_i
I bought my coco3 when radio rlshack was obsoleting them in favor of ibm compatible. 59 bucks for the computer. 59 for the western digital 256/512k floppy in a box with a cart port connector, but the best deal was os9 level2 complete with looseleaf manual for 5 bucks. Got a ram upgrade kit and it multitasked well at... was it 4mhz? Or was that the Epson hx20 I owned before the coco? Used it for ham packet radio @ 300 baud with a terminal program written in basic 1.1🤣
@hijabicatgirl @lamp
@lamp @Maple
kristophr
@bookstodon @histodons @academicchatter @actuallyautistic @palestine @infodump my first pc was a Commodore 64. I learned to code on it.

What’s fun tho is there still are people out there making games for it. I backed one on kickstarter a few years ago. I think they’re still plugging away at it.
@bookstodon group @actuallyautistic @histodons group @AcademicChatter group @palestine @infodump group
imdat celeste :v_tg: :v_nb: :v_genderfluid: [witchzard]
@bookstodon @histodons @academicchatter @actuallyautistic @palestine @infodump Oh, I did a lot of stuff on C64 in those days, but quickly switched to Sinclair QL (still one of the best small/home computers of all time) and then Atari ST. This was at home.

In school, I got a special dispensation and with that access to the schools PDP11/23 (I think this was around 1984), and with that I learned Pascal and later C.

In my first job (with 19), I worked at a small electronics company where I was the only software engineer. They had built a somewhat of a C64-clone, including its Basic, specifically for industrial use. It had special interfaces for connecting analogue and digital measuring instruments. We had our own, in-house developed Basic, about 90% compatibility with Commodore Basic V2.0 and I did tons of development on that machine for BMW, Mercedes, and others - for quality control of their car / motorcycle parts.

Well, those were really interesting times - I could tell so many stories.

And yes, there is still a vast thriving community of 8- and 16-bit home computer software/games/demo developers out there.
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Heretical_i
Many of the c128s ended up on mountaintops being used as amateur radio repeater controllers... someone wrote an elaborate piece of controller sw for it. I suppose some are still in use. @ics @kristophr @hijabicatgirl @lamp
@lamp @imdat celeste :v_tg: :v_nb: :v_genderfluid: [witchzard] @Maple @kristophr
Colin Macleod
@bookstodon @histodons @academicchatter @actuallyautistic @palestine A couple of years ago #usenet was getting choked with spam mainly originating from Google Groups. But Google Groups disconnected from Usenet earlier this year and since then the situation has improved.
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Heretical_i
I thought google groups was shuttered years ago @CGM Guess not. I know most listservs have become trash as well... at least the dozen or so I've subbed to over the years.

Ps. The sfbay nntp channel is completely useless. I watched it for a year or so and it was nothing but poor bashing/racist hate mail and NOTHING worthwhile.

@lamp
@Colin Macleod @lamp
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