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+ Usenet: The Network News
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+ Mark R. Horton
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+What is the Network News?
+
+ Usenet (Users' Network) is a bulletin board shared
+among many computer systems in the computer science commun-
+ity, around the United States, Canada, Europe, and Aus-
+tralia. There are currently around 500 machines on the net-
+work. Usenet is a logical network, sitting on top of
+several physical networks, including UUCP, BLICN, BITNET,
+various Berknets and Ethernets, and the ARPANET. Sites on
+Usenet include many universities, private companies and
+research organizations. Most of the members of Usenet are
+either university Computer Science departments, private com-
+panies, or part of Bell Telephone Laboratories. Currently,
+most Usenet sites run the UNIX* operating system, although
+there are Usenet sites running VMS, IBM's OS/360, and the
+Z80 MARC system.
+
+ The network news, or simply netnews, is the set of pro-
+grams that provide access to the news, and transfer it from
+one machine to the next. Netnews was originally written at
+Duke University, and has been modified extensively by the
+University of California at Berkeley. Netnews allows arti-
+cles to be posted for limited or very wide distribution.
+This document contains a list of newsgroups that were active
+at the time it was written, to assist you in determining the
+newsgroups to which you may want to subscribe. When creat-
+ing a new article, the level of distribution is controlled
+by specifying the newsgroup.
+
+ Any user can post an articles that will be sent out to
+the network to be read by persons interested in that topic.
+Users can specify which topics they are interested in via a
+subscription list. Then, whenever they ask to read news,
+they will be presented with all articles of interest that
+have not yet been read. There are also facilities for
+browsing through old news, posting follow-up articles, and
+sending direct electronic mail replies to the author of an
+article.
+__________________________
+*UNIX is a Trademark of Bell Laboratories.
+
+
+
+
+ June 1, 1983
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+ - 2 -
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+
+Why Usenet?
+
+ Usenet is useful in a number of ways. Someone wishing
+to announce a new program or product can reach a wide audi-
+ence of interested people. A user can ask ``Does anyone
+have an x?'' and will usually get several responses within a
+day or two. Bug reports and their fixes can be made quickly
+available without the usual overhead of sending out mass
+mailings. Discussions involving many people at different
+locations can take place without having to get everyone
+together.
+
+ Another facility with similar capabilities to netnews
+is the electronic mailing list. A mailing list is a collec-
+tion of electronic mailing addresses of users who are
+interested in a particular topic. By sending electronic
+mail to the list, all users on the list receive a copy of
+the article. While the mailing list facility is quite use-
+ful, Usenet offers a number of advantages not present in
+mailing lists. Getting yourself on a mailing list is not
+always easy. You have to figure out who maintains the list
+and ask them to put you on it. Often these people are out
+of town or busy, and don't put you on the list for several
+days. Sometimes you have to send mail to the entire mailing
+list, hoping that one of the readers will tell you who main-
+tains the list. Once you are on the list, you often find
+yourself in the middle of a discussion. Netnews keeps old
+articles around until they expire (usually about two weeks)
+so you can browse through old news to catch up on what you
+missed. Similarly, referring to an old article is easy,
+without having to keep a personal file of all old mail.
+
+ Another advantage is appreciated by the users of the
+system. There is less overhead in having only one copy of
+each message sent to each machine, instead of having
+separate copies sent to each of several users on the same
+machine. This cuts down on computer time to process the
+messages, and on line costs for telephone calls to transfer
+messages from one machine to another (when phone lines are
+used). Another advantage is in the disk space consumed.
+When only one message is sent to each system, only one copy
+of the message is kept on disk. In a mailing list environ-
+ment, each user has a copy in their own mailbox.
+
+ Another similar system is called Notesfiles. This sys-
+tem originated on CDC's Plato system, and a UNIX implementa-
+tion exists. Some Usenet sites run Notesfiles instead of or
+in addition to Netnews. Notesfiles is best known for its
+screen oriented user interface.
+
+How do I Read News?
+
+ In the Usenet jargon, topics are called newsgroups. A
+partial list of current newsgroups appears in figure 1. You
+
+
+
+ June 1, 1983
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+
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+ - 3 -
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+
+have your own subscription list of newsgroups to which you
+are said to subscribe.
+
+ There are different classes of newsgroups. Network
+newsgroups, e.g., net.misc, are sent to the entire network.
+Geographic areas and organizations can have local newsgroup
+classes, too. The newsgroup nj.general is only sent to
+machines in New Jersey. The company newsgroup bell.all is
+sent to all Bell System machines. Local newsgroups such as
+general stay on the local machine. For example, general-
+might of interest to the local users. ``From the Arpanet''
+(fa) newsgroups are used to gateway arpanet mailing lists
+into USENET.
+
+ To read news, type the command
+
+ readnews
+
+Each newsgroup to which you subscribe will be presented, one
+article at a time. As each article is presented, you will
+be shown the header (containing the name of the author, the
+subject, and the length of the article) and you will be
+asked if you want more. There are a number of possible
+choices you can make at this point. You can type ``y'' for
+``yes'' (or simply hit return) and the rest of the message
+will be displayed. Another choice you can make is ``n'' for
+``no''. This means you are not interested in the message -
+it will not be offered to you again.
+
+ Among the other commands you can type after seeing the
+header of an article are:
+
+q Quit. The articles you have read or ignored
+ are recorded and you are returned to the shell.
+
+s filename The article is saved in a disk file with the
+ given name.
+
+r Reply to the author of the message. You will
+ be placed in the editor, with a set of headers
+ derived from the message you are replying to.
+ Type in your message, and exit the editor. The
+ reply will be sent off via electronic mail.
+ You are then returned to readnews.
+
+f Post a follow-up message to the same newsgroup.
+ This posts an article on this newsgroup with
+ the same title as the original article. You
+ will be placed in the editor - enter your mes-
+ sage and exit.
+
+U Unsubscribe from this newsgroup.
+
+ Variants of many commands use a ``-'' to refer to the
+
+
+
+ June 1, 1983
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+
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+ - 4 -
+
+
+previous message, e.g., ``r-'' replies to the previous mes-
+sage, whose complete contents you have now seen.
+
+Submitting Articles
+
+ To submit a new news article type
+
+ postnews
+
+You will be prompted for the newsgroup, title, and distribu-
+tion on your terminal. Then you will be placed in the edi-
+tor. Enter the text of your article, and then exit the edi-
+tor. The article will be posted to the newsgroups speci-
+fied, and distributed to the appropriate machines across the
+network.
+
+Joining Usenet
+
+ Admission to Usenet is open to anyone interested. An
+interested site administrator should first find a nearby
+Usenet site that is willing to feed them news. Then the two
+administrators set up a UUCP connection between the two
+sites, and transfer the Usenet software over the link. (The
+``B news'' software is in the public domain, and comes with
+full documentation and installation instructions.) Next they
+set up the news connection. Test articles are sent over the
+link, and then the new site announces itself to the news-
+group net.news.newsite. (The list of Usenet sites, their
+Usenet neighbors, and who the contact persons are, is pub-
+lished monthly in net.news.map.) Once you have accepted a
+link from a site, unless there are good reasons not to, you
+should be willing to feed two or three more new sites in
+turn. No money is charged for the news itself or the
+software, but it is up to the two sites to make arrangements
+for any phone bills involved. There are Usenet sites in
+nearly every major metropolitan area in the United States
+and Canada, with especially heavy concentrations in New Jer-
+sey, Illinois, and Silicon Valley. If you know of a nearby
+Usenet site, you can either connect to them (if they are
+willing), or ask them to look in net.news.map to find you a
+nearby site. If you don't know of a nearby Usenet site,
+call me at (614) 860-4276 and I'll refer you to one.
+
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+ June 1, 1983
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+ - 5 -
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+ This is a list of some major USENET newsgroups as of May 24, 1983.
+ The full list is maintained by Adam Buchsbaum (research!alb)
+ ----------------------------------------------------------------------
+ Newsgroup Description
+ ----------------------------------------------------------------------
+ net.announce Moderated newsgroup for important announcements.
+ net.auto Automobiles and automotive products and laws.
+ net.bugs General bug reports and fixes.
+ net.bugs.4bsd Subgroup for UNIX version 4BSD related bugs.
+ net.bugs.uucp Subgroup for UUCP related bugs.
+ net.columbia The space shuttle and the STS program.
+ net.cse Computer science education.
+ net.eunice The SRI Eunice system.
+ net.games Games and computer games.
+ net.garden Gardening, methods and results.
+ net.graphics Computer graphics, art, and animation.
+ net.jobs Job announcements, requests, etc.
+ net.jokes Jokes and the like. May be slightly offensive.
+ net.lan Local area network hardware and software.
+ net.lang Different computer languages.
+ net.lang.c Subgroup for C.
+ net.mail Proposed new mail/network standards.
+ net.med Medicine and its related products and regulations.
+ net.micro Micro computers of all kinds.
+ net.micro.68k Subgroup for 68k's.
+ net.micro.atari Subgroup for Atari's.
+ net.misc Discussions too short lived for their own groups.
+ net.movies Reviews and discussions of movies.
+ net.news Discussions of USENET itself.
+ net.news.group Subgroup for discussions and lists of newsgroups.
+ net.news.map Subgroup for maps.
+ net.news.newsite Subgroup for new site announcements.
+ net.pets Pets, pet care, and household animals in general.
+ net.politics Political discussions. Could get hot.
+ net.rec Recreational/participant sports.
+ net.religion Religious, ethical, and moral implications of actions.
+ net.research Research and computer research.
+ net.sf-lovers Science fiction lovers' newsgroup.
+ net.sources For the posting of software packages.
+ net.sport Spectator sports.
+ net.taxes Tax laws and advice.
+ net.unix-wizards Discussions, bug reports, and fixes on and
+ for UNIX. Not for the weak of heart.
+ net.usenix USENIX Association events and announcements.
+ net.wanted Requests for things that are needed, e.g. device
+ drivers, pointers to people, etc.
+ net.women Women's rights, discrimination, etc.
+ net.works Assorted workstations.
+ fa.human-nets Computer aided communications.
+ fa.info-vax DEC's VAX line of computers.
+ fa.tcp-ip TCP and IP network protocols.
+ fa.telecom Telecommunications digest.
+
+ Figure 1 - Partial Newsgroup List
+
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+ June 1, 1983
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+ June 1, 1983
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projects / unix-history / commitdiff