[Info-vax] [OT] Eternal September, was: Re: backups and compaction or nocompaction might be better

[Richard B. Gilbert]

On 2/2/2013 6:29 AM, Paul Sture wrote:
> In article <keb5j3$m06$1 at dont-email.me>,
>   Simon Clubley <clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> wrote:
>
>> On 2013-01-30, Paul Sture <nospam at sture.ch> wrote:
>>> In article <ke91fv$ap$1 at dont-email.me>,
>>>   Simon Clubley <clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 2013-01-29, pcoviello at gmail.com <pcoviello at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> ok first what is endless september?
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> It's a play on a name for a service called Eternal September which is a
>>>> free NNTP service. The implicit suggestion from Hoff was that you should
>>>> switch from using Google Groups (which is just a very poorly written web
>>>> based Usenet client) to using a real Usenet client.
>>>
>>> Background to the name "Eternal September":
>>>
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September
>>>
>>
>> AOL has a lot to answer for, not only for what they did, but also because
>> they were the first major commercial organisation to do so and so they set
>> the de facto standard for what many other commercial newcomers considered
>> to be acceptable. :-(
>>
>> I started out with standalone BBS boards in the early 1980s as a teenage
>> kid, before moving to FidoNet based systems when they became established
>> and then onto systems with various Internet based interfaces so I can
>> clearly remember the time before AOL and what happened when AOL let their
>> customers loose.
>
> My first taste of being online didn't come until 1995, when modem prices
> came down to acceptable prices, at least in part due to the impending
> relaxation of BT's grip on certifying devices they allowed to be
> connected.  As it happens I chose CompuServe and was delighted to find a
> VMS presence there in the form of VAXFORUM.  I really wished I had come
> across that earlier, for folks were already leaving for web based forums
> and by 1998 it was dead.

I think Stu Fuller is still around.  I know that I am!