Usenet /yoos'net/ or /yooz'net/ n.
[from `Users' Network'; the original spelling was USENET, but
the mixed-case form is now widely preferred] A distributed bboard (bulletin board) system supported
mainly by Unix machines. Originally implemented in 1979-1980 by
Steve Bellovin, Jim Ellis, Tom Truscott, and Steve Daniel at Duke
University, it has swiftly grown to become international in scope
and is now probably the largest decentralized information utility
in existence. As of early 1996, it hosts over 10,000 newsgroups and an average of over 500
megabytes (the equivalent of several thousand paper pages) of new
technical articles, news, discussion, chatter, and flamage every day (and that leaves out the
graphics...).
By the year the Internet hit the mainstream (1994) the
original UUCP transport for Usenet was fading out of use (see
UUCPNET) - almost all Usenet
connections were over Internet links. A lot of newbies and
journalists began to refer to "Internet newsgroups" as though
Usenet was and always had been just another Internet service.
This ignorance greatly annoys experienced Usenetters.
Node:Usenet Death Penalty,
Next:user, Previous:Usenet, Up:= U =