Usenet Newsgroups History

General comment: the volume of Netnews (in MB/day) has doubled every year since Usenet was started, and it shows no signs of letting up.

Mark Horton; usenet/history/1985-1990; 26 Sep 1990.

We estimated a maximum size of 100 sites, and 1-2 articles a day, net-wide…

Steve Bellovin; usenet/history/1985-1990; 10 Oct 1990.

Who invented Usenet newsgroups? Usenet was the first Internet peer-to-peer technology. Originally created just to share files between computers, it evolved into a natural net-wide hierarchy of eight major categories plus a catch-call. The following sections provide more information:

Other resources. The following sites provide more information on Usenet history:

  • Spafford, Gene; Email History <9009242203.AA04892@weber.ucsd.edu>