It's been 18 Years On Usenet?

[Don]

WOW - all this Claude stuff got me to look back on Google at some my early postings.

Differently a different time (college, using Unix Shell, Tin, Pine) than it is now. :)

Glad to have been part of this group for some many years though not many of the oldies actively post anymore.

DL

[Moder@tor]

Don, I got my first email account in 1996 with Netcom, later bought out by
Mindspring, then ultimately, Earthlink. Back then there was an integrated Netcom
software that included chat rooms (LOL, remember those?) and Usenet. I posted
(under my nym at that time) on asbngsw as early as 1996, some 17 years ago. So
you beat me by a year. I knew it had been running for a while at that time, but
not sure when it was started. Anyone?? And you're right, very few of the oldies
active anymore. I've taken to lurking most of the time. I remember using a slow
modem at first and it took forever for pages to load. But then again, my very
first dos computer had a whopping 1mb hard drive. I upgraded to a 3mb drive and
thought I'd never need more.

[coa...@gmail.com]

HA - that is funny. Most of us oldies can share some of the War Stories to the younger generation about the what the INTERNET was before the rise of graphical browsers / etc. :)

Here's some interesting history with me and the Internet / Usenet. Even as early as maybe 1992 (or maybe a year or two after), I had heard about "e-mail" from a high school friend. The friend had gone to an East Coast university where she had gotten an Internet account. I was stuck at a junior college and I don't think they had internet access / email accounts at the time (if they did, maybe it was the teachers / administrators).

Fast forward to 1995 and I transferred to a 4-year university and the school publicly advertised about Internet accounts. I signed up not too long after I got to the university. As my computer did not have a modem at that time, I spent a TON OF TIME at the schools machines surfing the web on Mosaic / Netscape 1.0 and (of course) posting on Usenet.

Interestingly enough, another high school friend of mine was a MAJOR computer geek. Every so often, we would head down to Silicon Valley and hit some of the thrift shops: Herb's Software / Weird Stuff / etc. My friend was looking for systems and other things to play around with. I liked finding programs and other more "useful" things.

At one point, I saw a couple of things that would change my life: Some telecommunications software and then a MODEM (first a 300 baud then 2400 baud). While you mentioned you had a DOS computer, I had an APPLE IIE. Yes, a computer from 1984 with 128K of RAM and two 5 1/4 Floppy Disk Drives.

But using my phone line and modem at home, I connected to a different world. I was online a TON at home. I was Pine / Tin / Lynx just doing all sorts of different things. I used the "talk" / "ntalk" to chat (precursor to IM / Texting). I didn't participate on chat rooms / IRC much but knew about it.

This setup lasted me until around 1997 when I had to get a Compaq (with Windows 95) PC for a COBOL class (I was a CIS Major!). I still used the Apple IIe before the video finally died on me a year or two later.

I don't remember exactly when this group started but I think someone mentioned it was a few years before 1995. I'm pretty sure Google could discover the first post or something if we really wanted to know!

Those were some interesting days. While all of us can appreciate how technology has advanced since 1995, I still do miss the days of command line. In fact, I still have a Unix shell account out there (sdf.lonestar.org). :)

DL

[Don]

On Thursday, May 23, 2013 2:10:40 AM UTC-7, Moder@tor wrote:
>
>

> I posted (under my nym at that time) on asbngsw as early as 1996, some 17 years ago. So
> you beat me by a year. I knew it had been running for a while at that time, but
> not sure when it was started. Anyone?? And you're right, very few of the oldies
> active anymore. I've taken to lurking most of the time.

I neglected to post a few of the oldies I remember:

Greg, Harold, Robin, Barry Wong, Allen

I just did a search and some others: Aunt Bee (seems to be more recent)), Motown67,

Lastly, I did a search on my old email address and found a posting I put up on the history of the NG:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/alt.sports.basketball.nba.gs-warriors/le...@sfsu.edu/alt.sports.basketball.nba.gs-warriors/_51MsyNb3l8/Vgek1IxrAK8J

Worth reading though it looks like we never did get the newsgroup FAQ done.

DL

[Greg Lentz]

On Thu, 23 May 2013 01:32:03 -0700 (PDT), Don <coa...@pacbell.net> wrote:

>WOW - all this Claude stuff got me to look back on Google at some my early postings.
>
>Differently a different time (college, using Unix Shell, Tin, Pine) than it is now. :)

Yep. In many ways, much better back then.
--
Greg Lentz

[Don]

On Thursday, May 23, 2013 10:23:49 PM UTC-7, Greg Lentz wrote:
>
> Yep. In many ways, much better back then.
>
> --
>
> Greg Lentz

Well, there was a lot of participation back then. This group is pretty sparse though we obviously remained DEVOTED. :)

OTOH, I have a feeling you mean the QUALITY of participation on the Internet as a whole these days. Lot of young kids online and talking trash. I see it on the various web message boards. It was less so back in the old days.

DL

[Greg Lentz]

On Thu, 23 May 2013 23:36:21 -0700 (PDT), Don <coa...@pacbell.net> wrote:

>On Thursday, May 23, 2013 10:23:49 PM UTC-7, Greg Lentz wrote:
>>
>> Yep. In many ways, much better back then.
>
>

>Well, there was a lot of participation back then. This group is pretty sparse though we obviously remained DEVOTED. :)
>
>OTOH, I have a feeling you mean the QUALITY of participation on the Internet as a whole these days. Lot of young kids online and talking trash. I see it on the various web message boards. It was less so back in the old days.

Everything's Twitter-fied now. Short meaningless quips on blogs and
Twitter. Spam killed Usenet before technological advances finished it
off.
--
Greg Lentz

[Don]

On Thursday, May 23, 2013 11:58:57 PM UTC-7, Greg Lentz wrote:

> Everything's Twitter-fied now. Short meaningless quips on blogs and
>
> Twitter. Spam killed Usenet before technological advances finished it
>
> off.
>
> --
>
> Greg Lentz

I hardly use Twitter except (believe it or not) when I am at Warrior games and I want to post commentary. :) Not sure why I feel compelled to but I've done that quite a bit when I am at games. Or I just post on my Facebook status. Guess I am guilty as charged Greg! :)

Seriously, what I find Twitter useful for is the links to articles that I might not see otherwise. Lots of interesting reading material linked there.

This group is good for the same thing. Usenet is dead. Long live Usenet! :)

Maybe I'll create a FB group for all of us oldies to discuss Warriors basketball and retire this old group.....Sorry to those who don't use FB. :D

DL

[Peter Lawrence]

On 5/23/13 9:13 PM, Don wrote:
>
> I neglected to post a few of the oldies I remember:
>
> Greg, Harold, Robin, Barry Wong, Allen

Don't know if Robin is still following the Warriors. She still occasionally
posts to the American Idol newsgroup (alt.tv.american-idol).


- Peter

[Don]

On Monday, May 27, 2013 10:00:57 PM UTC-7, Peter Lawrence wrote:

>
> Don't know if Robin is still following the Warriors. She still occasionally
>
> posts to the American Idol newsgroup (alt.tv.american-idol).
>
>
> - Peter

Ah - good to know Robin is still around. She dropped in here a couple of years ago or so. If you happen to see her post on the Idol group, drop her a note and ask her to say hi to the rest of us. Be curious to see what she thought of the current generation of Warriors. :)

OTOH, I've always wondered what happened to Barry Wong. He was an active poster and then just "vanished" from the Usenet.

DL