Oct 14, 2020 20:00:00

Internet writing in the 1980s revives from magnetic tape

Posts posted around the 1980s have been released all at once on the

net news of the Internet discussion system ' Usenet ', which was the predecessor of Internet bulletin boards such as 5ch and Reddit. You can see for yourself what kind of conversations were taking place on the Internet at that time.

Converting UTZOO-Wiseman Usenet Tapes to Website with PostgreSQL backend using Python 3.8 – Jozef Jarosciak Blog
https://www.joe0.com/2020/10/07/converting-utzoo-wiseman-netnews-archive-to-postgresql-using-python-3-8/

2.1 Million of the Oldest Internet Posts Are Now Online for Anyone to Read
https://www.vice.com/en/article/pky7km/usenet-archive-utzoo-online

Usenet is a type of distributed network built around 1980. We have a system in which each post is replicated on a large number of servers, and on Usenet, a discussion group called 'Net News,' which is equivalent to a modern Internet bulletin board system, was operated.

In the early 1980s, net news was one of the most popular internet services, but with the advent of the World Wide Web , its popularity began to fade, and in modern times, internet bulletin boards such as Reddit and 5ch, Facebook and Twitter. It has almost disappeared after surrendering its position to social networks such as.

Not only did it become less popular as a service and disappeared, but it was thought that the 'net news log' itself had disappeared as a result of the disappearance of the server hosting Usenet over time.

However, the situation changed completely when Henry Spencer , a well-known space enthusiast, saved a log of net news for people belonging to a university called 'UTZOO' on magnetic tape. It turns out that there are about 2.1 million posts posted between February 1981 and June 1991, the early days of net news.

It was Jozef Jarosciak who tried to revive this early writing. Jarosciak and his friends converted the data left on Spencer's magnetic tape into

TAR format, compiled it into a PostgreSQL database, and released it as an open source resource. The published database is below.

Usenet Archives (UsenetArchives.com)
https://usenetarchives.com/

It is possible to search for writing by keyword search from the search field at the top, but this time I will search for writing from the category at the bottom of the search field. Each category is 'Alt (non-traditional)' 'Comp (computer)' 'Humanities (humanities)' 'Microsoft (Microsoft related)' 'Misc (others)' 'News (news)' 'Rec (hobby)' ' Sci (science), 'Soc (society)', 'Talk (chat)', 'Utzoo', etc. This time, I decided to look at the 'Utzoo' category, which contains the writings revived from the magnetic tape owned by Mr. Spencer.

In each category, the group corresponding to 'board' is listed. The groups in the 'Utzoo' category are miscellaneous groups such as 'Alt. Alien. Visitors' and 'Alt. Atheism'.

This time, I decided to take a look at the '

Rec. Arts. Anime ' group.

Each thread of the anime group looks like this. It seems that there are many topics of Japanese animation such as ' Looking For Ranma Story (Please tell me what the story of Ranma 1/2)' and ' Astroboy Versus Hitler ( Astroboy vs Hitler)'. By default, threads are displayed in order of new arrival.

The oldest thread in the anime group was '

What Is GIF? (Info Needed) ' posted in 1989.

You can view each post by clicking on each thread.

Jarosciak commented on his attempt to revive Usenet's net news: 'A treasure trove of old posts should be passed on to future generations. These posts are interesting to read, but more importantly, the Internet in its early days. It's focused on the thinking process of the community. It's a historical source, and it would be my negligence or an archivist to miss the opportunity to make it publicly available as an archive. '