2011年1月9日 星期日

USENET

Because of Google, many computer users nowadays do not know USENET any more; however, it is still one place you can go for asking questions about almost anything. What is the USENET? Again, you can google it and then come back here. Please do it.

The most popular things that people do with USENET are:
  • Access free software.
  • Discuss technical topics.
  • Keep current on a hobby or special interest, or learn about new ones.
For example, there is a newsgroup comp.unix.solaris that discusses Solaris OS system. There you can ask any question about it.

At the time when the Internet was not popular, people communicate at remote sites either by written letters or by telephone calls. The first Internet-like service was mailing lists. Sending a message to a mailing list alias would forward the message to all the individuals who had subscribed to the list. And the USENET was the second one, that had the same purpose of sharing resources.