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Loading ...Google Groups is just an interface to USENET, known as Newsgroups. USENET “is sustained among a large number of servers, which store and forward messages with one another,” using an ancient inefficient technology called UUCP (Unix to Unix Copy).
Which is to say, when you post a response to Google Groups, that message does not exist on one machine in one Database, but is rather like when your school teacher distributed a pile of field trip forms at home room by handing you the pile. You took a single copy and then passed it on.
There is a high incidence of latency in this system, but UUCP was developed way before the Internet supported such numbers. It can take quite a while for this to “propagate” all over the Google Groups world.
Some more interesting tidbits:
“Before the widespread availability of universal connectivity through the Internet, computers were only connected by smaller networks, or point-to-point links. UUCP allowed message switching between machines, rather like Fidonet (which was modeled on UUCP and very common on DOS systems).”
- UUCP on Wikipedia
“Usenet is one of the oldest computer network communications systems still in widespread use. It was established in 1980 following experiments in the previous year, over a decade before the general public was admitted to the Internet and the World Wide Web was introduced. It was originally conceived as a “poor man’s ARPANET”, employing UUCP to offer mail and file transfers, as well as announcements through the newly developed news software. This system, developed at Duke University, was called USENET to emphasize its creators’ hope that the USENIX organization would take an active role in its operation (Daniel et al, 1980).”
- USENET on Wikipedia
“Usenet is a distributed Internet discussion system that evolved from a general purpose UUCP network of the same name. Users read and post email-like messages (called “articles”) to a number of distributed newsgroups, categories that resemble bulletin board systems in most respects. The medium is sustained among a large number of servers, which store and forward messages with one another.”
- USENET on Wikipedia
“A newsgroup is a repository, usually within the Usenet system, for messages posted from many users at different locations. The term is somewhat confusing, because it is usually a discussion group. Newsgroups are technically distinct from, but functionally similar to, discussion forums on the World Wide Web. Newsreader software is used to read newsgroups.”
- Newsgroups on Wikipedia
Filed under: USENET Newsgroups
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