Experience Usenet As It Was In 1987

[@tdumnxy]

1975, English kid living in Alabama had access to a Teletype machine with an acoustic coupler modem (sub 1200-baud). Played Lunar Lander on remote USAF mainframe. 1987, huge leap forward.

[@EMarkMoore]

Smashing nostalgia as usual, Dan - many thanks for your time.

[@lucafauna4824]

i still meet some BBS friends for a beer after many years :)

[@Neffers_UK]

That's awesome!

[@lucafauna4824]

Hehe yup we just meet 2 or 3 times in a year but we still have our mailing list since the 90s and now whatsapp and telegram group of course. ..in the end they're the oldest friends that i have :D

[@Neffers_UK]

What you have there is a great bit of history not just because of you guys still hanging out, but the way it came to be, long may you remain in contact. So nice to hear.

[@boydpukalo8980]

One thing I do NOT miss is downloading headers and searching for what was posted. Those times in the 1990's were magical.

[@JeffDeWitt]

For years one of the most popular automotive groups was alt.autos.studebaker. It was a GREAT group.

[@RustyOnTECH]

I only discovered your content recently as I grew up with RISC OS and you've got some great videos. What I really appreciate about your videos is you don't try and do all those jump edits but just flow naturally. Enjoying catching up with all your content, plus subscribed :)

[@trr94001]

Even worse than "Information Superhighway" was "Infobahn".

[@NEOGEOJunkie]

Nice video Dan, I remember going to a place called "the leading edge" in London that was essentially a big Internet cafe, where I used to get my IRC and Usenet fix before I had my first modem for my A600 :-)

[@duked19]

Thanks for your video! Did som google groups search and was able to find a usenet post of mine dating back to 1996!

[@Tech-geeky]

reminds me of Back to the future (Doc) mentioned "I wonder, could I go back an look myself up"

[@cujo9999]

Back in the late 80's/early 90's, my wife and I bought a pc for our daughter. It was a Packard Bell. We got it used. I don't think my daughter paid attention to it, but I found Free Agent (software to download from newsgroups). It took a little research to figure out what I needed to do. The previous owners had not wiped their drive (2.1gb😀). Turned out my ISP had a server for newgroups so I could log in for free. It was awesome. I was still on dial-up but I used it for a couple of years to download mp3's. I liked it far better than Napster, Kazaa and all the others because it was so organized and they weren't crappy mp3's. I'm an albums guy so I didn't have much interest in dowloading singles. They had seperate groups for styles of music, decade, live music, etc. I would cue up 8 or 10 albums before going to work (worked night shift) and many mornings it would still be downloading. No need for it now but that was an awesome time....

[@nicholas_scott]

Our school had usenet back in the late 80s running on a PDP-11 via the Bitnet network. It was the main forum everyone used up until the late 90s. NOTE- Google has greatly reduced its archive of usenet, trying to push people to its own google groups.

[@itsaPIXELthing]

Amazing memories, Dan! Thanks! :)

[@d3hour]

I was running BBS back in early 90s :)

[@ninjamaster3453]

Toxix which 1

[@Neffers_UK]

Getting "online" in the early days was bloody expensive. I remember reading in ST Format (I still have the mags from issue one and read them on the loo, as ya do) about how it was cheaper to sub to portals (sort of) that routed telecoms through an exchange (server) that allowed you to use local rate calls to use BBS etc. across the pond, but they were incredibly expensive, £20 for x hours plus call times might not sound a lot, but when pocket money was a quid a week it was way out of reach for most. Not to mention getting the hardware at the time (then using PD software to dial). The communication between boards was slow man, it was like trying to use email through an interpreter. Once you got round all the paywall it was great, however. Being able to have something equivalent to a magazines articles displayed and be able to (very slowly) download the stuff that would have been the equivalent of a cover disk was totally beyond what was thinkable. What a trip back man, thanks for the revisit. #duplexbaudrates

[@franzjosephaque2066]

Usenet was used in the 80s and 90s to make message and domain was used in the 80s and 90s to made an article on the website.

[@BeyondTheScanlines]

Good old Usenet. I remember originally hopping in the late 90s - and it was certainly one of those experiences. Seeing it in real-time, that's certain an experience. But, one I'm not entirely sure I am ready to jump for yet ;) (Still, so glad to see that its been preserved in a far more interesting way that how Google was via their Groups site…)

[@Thiesi]

Nice one, Dan! Brings back lots of fond memories. Thanks for the video and happy Easter!

[@PeterFreitag]

you look very young! Lilke a 20 years old amiga fan of the 90´s! :)

[@seif9923]

wow what a great channel you seem like a wonderful person, definitely me in 20 years lol

[@MagikGimp]

I could literally spend days on there.

[@museste]

Davey would be a fascinating podcast guest

[@mrjsv4935]

Wow, amazing! I was in 6th grade at school in April 1987 and didn't have yet even the Commodore 64, at the time had a Salora Manager (known outside Finland as a Vtech Laser 2001) home computer and could only dream about going online :) Later got the C-64 and Amiga 500, bought some Amiga Magazines in the 90's which I still have. Still have the Amiga 500 in working condition and those coverdisks still work also which came with the magazines :)

[@joethomas8718]

I use Usenet now for tv shows

[@abergethirty]

I was still using my Amiga, and Usenet with the internet in the early 90's. My first Web Browser, IRC chat client, was on the Amiga. I had to edit my TCP/IP plugin to get it to work with my Modem. None of it was simple or as plug and play as it is now.

[@oldhedders]

Davey Winder wrote for PC Pro for many years and continues to write prolifically, mostly on the theme of security. You can find him on Twitter on @happygeek and on the web at happygeek.com.

[@Quedron]

I remember Davey 😎

[@theslownorris7277]

Oh, Dave! Perahps he wouldn't and isn't lost today. Right on Davey!

[@Tech-geeky]

wow, even pre-dates IRC in 1988, (not by much). I always thought the "information super highway" was a speedway. And yes,, Usenet DOES has someting for everyone, even the non-legal sense. :)

[@RetroTech100]

David Winder would make a great guest for the podcast if you could track him down. I didnt get on the internet til 97 on chatrooms like lycos but it is fascinating.

[@shahid1296ify]

Brilliant video again mate!

[@Clarkthek]

Holy Moley! Davey Winder looks like the visual inspiration for Spider Jerusalem.

[@lunsj]

Excellent video Dan. If you haven't already made one maybe you'd be interested in talking about Telehack in a future video? Thanks.

[@manfrombritain6816]

the internet was so fuckin good back before like 2015

[@dominospizza4386]

2015???????

[@heidirichter]

Oh wow, one of the first things I read just now was a post about the rumours that Commodore were going to shut down what was left of the original Amiga team, wondering who would design the new silicon for the rumoured new Amiga...

[@peterdoa1]

shell suites are the bomb man!

[@mr.nobody6829]

BBC lost their show in their archive? That's a shocking thing to know.

[@AndrewBates]

Hi Dan, I've been checking out your videos a lot lately to try and get up to speed on Amiga again (had access to one when I was a kid). Just wondered if you had any idea why I'm getting mouse 'lag' in Amiga Forever? Every 10 or 15 seconds, the mouse will just freeze for a moment and then work fluidly again. I'm mainly using the Workbench 3.X system, but it happens on pretty much any system I try.

[@twowheelsrulecagersdrool6239]

Plugged his name into google and came up with this: happygeek.com/?page_id=33 I ran many BBS in my day. First one I ran was on my ADAM Computer - internal 300 baud modem. I was kickin' ass when I got a GVC 2400+ MNP.... WOW... and then with an upgrade program from USR I was able to get a 16.8K modem. Ahhh... those were the days. ADAM, Amiga and PC using BBS programs and the Amiga and PC on the net since 1994.

[@peterdoa1]

even the zx spectrum could access internet with own message board system

[@ChrisWMF]

that was a meandering preface. it took 4:10 to get to the point.

[@marcello4258]

Are there still active boards online? Id love to see IRC Usenet and Gemini being use a little bit more.. the bloated cookies and java scripts makes me sick and everything is super distracting like reddit, social Media, News sites, articles

[@theslownorris7277]

Dave, Clever dude. Poor Dave would be lost today. USENET is dead! Long Live USENET! :/

[@AndyGarton]

Dan do you have that link for the Google "best of usenet" thing please?

[@predcon1]

Well now, wasn't it lucky I tweeted when I did? #SneakyPlug :P

[@Messiah38]

4:17 this why we have people snooping around in the true free world. Keep your mouth shut like " never talk about fight club" rule one. Some days I miss my Commodore SX 64, Vic 20,64,128/D Amiga 500,600,1200,2000 , couldn't afford to buy the Amiga 4000

[@RetroMMA]

We invented it so we can call it any silly thing we want... :P

[@turbolenza35]

3615 RTEL

[@bsvenss2]

Usenet - your first contact with online porn... 😝

[@Spoonuk666]

Gotta love ASCII porn haha :)

[@oldtwins]

ASCII porn? Binary was Uuencoded. Binary to text and decoded the other way around. Still in use.

[@Tech-geeky]

Don't people meet in bars anymore?

[@alextee2684]

Make an interview with the other david the us David........David haynie

[@ThePaperKhan]

bit outdated...