Ask HN: What is a good history of USENET and/or BBSs?

5 points by lukewrites 7y ago ↗ HN

I have very fond memories of participating in discussions on USENET twenty-odd years ago and want to read more about it and the people behind it.

What books/articles/docs/hypertexts would you recommend?

4 comments

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miles 7y ago ↗

BBS: The Documentary

http://www.bbsdocumentary.com

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBS:_The_Documentary

https://archive.org/details/BBS.The.Documentary

lukewrites 7y ago ↗

Thanks! I remember seeing this in the textfiles.com footer but haven't ever gotten around to buying a copy. I'll put it on the list.

bediger4000 7y ago ↗

Good question. I don't know of any. I'd like to read something about the ultimate demise of Usenet. I mean, "because of spam" is the easy answer, but why didn't anyone squelch the spam? Some mention should be made of Uunet's "pink" contracts, but there had to be other providers that looked the other way for a little short-term gain.

jonjacky 7y ago ↗

This was discussed at length here several years ago (2015). This Ask HN has 140 comments, many quite long:

Ask HN: What was Usenet's ultimate demise? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9987679