olduse.net: a real-time historical exhibit
September 30, 2015 1:40 PM   Subscribe

olduse.net: a real-time historical exhibit
Usenet, updated in real time as it was thirty years ago.

This is a 10 year-long exhibit, constantly being updated with posts made to Usenet 30 years ago. At this point it's about half-way through the corpus of posts, which seems like a good time to post it here.

The data source is the UTZOO tape archive, which was preserved due to the forward thinking and hard work of several dozen mostly unsung heroes, and became publically available while on its way to The Google via unlikely circumstances indeed.
Role: data miner, programmer, admin
posted by joeyh (8 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite

Ha, that is rad.
posted by cortex at 1:40 PM on September 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


This is a 10 year-long exhibit

That alone is amazing! I gotta do something like that someday.

And it ends right when I got into Usenet. I look forward to it becoming increasingly recognizable.
posted by ignignokt at 4:22 PM on September 30, 2015


Is there a way for me to jump to 1990? All the posts I see seem to be from 1985.
posted by ignignokt at 5:11 PM on September 30, 2015


ignignokt, sure: come back in 2020.
posted by joeyh at 5:28 PM on September 30, 2015 [4 favorites]


Nice. I guess I stumbled on some lookup feature that shows posts from 1990 and other years.
posted by ignignokt at 7:06 PM on September 30, 2015


Oh, it started in 1981! OK, I didn't get that and thought it started in 1985, so I was confused about you saying that it was halfway through the corpus.
posted by ignignokt at 7:08 PM on September 30, 2015


Subject: Re: HOW TO DEAL WITH A JERK
From: Date: Tue, 1-Oct-85 12:02:00 EDT

"You have the right to call everyone who supports Black's right to rant a Nazi; we have the right to call you an ass for saying something that stupid. Criticism is not censorship."

plus ça change...
posted by MCMikeNamara at 9:08 AM on October 1, 2015 [2 favorites]


Oh god am I in there yet? I'll start being embarrassed now so it won't all hit me at once when I find my old Usenet postings.
posted by rmd1023 at 6:09 AM on October 2, 2015 [2 favorites]


« Older Diogenes...   |   Drawing Connections: a train c... Newer »


You are not currently logged in. Log in or create a new account to post comments.