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0 pointschongli2y ago0 comments

It feels silly to say this since it sounds like you’ve been using Usenet since the dawn of time, but you can get GUI-based news readers that fetch articles from your Usenet over the internet, no dialing up or using Telnet required.

Properly configured, these news readers feel just like email clients, with threading and signatures and all that. Yes, the configuration part is some work but you only have to do it once and then you’re set up for all of Usenet. With forums you have to find and create an account separately for each one.

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axus2y ago· 2 in thread

I think they were talking about BBS interface vs. forums, and you're talking about Usenet (the actual topic of the article).

chongliOP2y ago

Usenet could (and still can) be operated via telnet using the NNTP protocol [1]. The whole protocol is ASCII-based, just like HTTP, and works via simple text commands. The most common way to access Usenet back in the day was over dialup.

[1] https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc977

throwaway847t2y ago

Sure, but the most common way to access Usenet/NNTP servers was through graphical GUI software or "TUI" for those that preferred terminals. Most people didn't write NNTP commands directly, although I did that because I wanted to learn the protocols (same with POP/SMTP/HTTP that are surprisingly easy to get started with)

NNTP worked great with dialup. You could connect and download all the new content since the last time you were online and catch-up offline without blocking the phone line. The clients were designed to work both in both online and offline mode

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