Subject: Usenet history

From: "Nadav Har'El" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2001 14:40:32 +0200

Google just added to their usenet archive messages going back to 1981 (I
have no idea where they got them, or if they really have all the old stuff)
Anyway, take a look at Google's announcement:

	http://www.google.com/googlegroups/archive_announce_20.html

As usual with them, their announcement is a lot of fun: they point to
many interesting usenet postings from the last 20 years. Like the first
mention of the CD (1982), first mention of Madonna (1983), Stallman
announcing GNU (1983), and Microsoft announcing Windows (same year),
The Internet Wrom (1988), Linus announcing Linux (1991), Mosaic - the
first WWW browser (1993), First usenet spam (1994), and more.

It's also nice to see again some of my older postings ;) The oldest
I could find was from July 1990, when I sent a question to comp.unix.i386
on how to do graphics for my PC running AT&T System V (before X windows was
generally available on that system). I had to send this post from my father's
account, because I didn't have one before I entered the Technion. (see,
another good thing I got out of the Technion!)

Looking over these postings sure brings back memories... For example, my
August 1991 question on what book I can read to learn X-Windows
(http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=10063%40discus.technion.ac.il&output=gplain),
my 1991 and 1992 postings regarding PC hardware, MS-DOS archivers and games
(no, I didn't always shun MS products), and more...

If you want another relevant but unintelligible Latin saying, here it is:
Tempus fugit... (time flies, or more literally, "time flees").

-- 
Nadav Har'El                        |     Tuesday, Dec 11 2001, 26 Kislev 5762
[email-masked]             |-----------------------------------------
Phone: +972-53-245868, ICQ 13349191 |As every cat owner knows, nobody owns a
http://nadav.harel.org.il           |cat.

---

From: Oleg Goldshmidt <[email-masked]>
Date: 11 Dec 2001 19:11:37 +0200

> have no idea where they got them, or if they really have all the old

The answer is in the last but one item on the timeline there - 

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=slrn98gdhm.s6.grobe%2Bnews%40worf.netins.net

One that caught my attention is the first mention of Microsoft:

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=anews.Aunc.850

Funnily enough, it is about a "What is UNIX?" article (on XENIX,
actually) in BYTE written by M$ XENIX product manager. Kinda ironic...

-- 
Oleg Goldshmidt | [email-masked] 
"If it ain't broken, it has not got enough features yet."

---

From: "Nadav Har'El" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2001 20:42:32 +0200

> http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=anews.Aunc.850

Actually, seeing that their archive starts on May 1981, and that that article
is also from May 1981, I wouldn't call it "the first mention" of Microsoft -
they were probably mentioned earlier too, and Google just doesn't have it.

-- 
Nadav Har'El                        |     Tuesday, Dec 11 2001, 27 Kislev 5762
[email-masked]             |-----------------------------------------
Phone: +972-53-245868, ICQ 13349191 |Are you still here? The message is over.
http://nadav.harel.org.il           |Shoo! Go away!