Had its own protocol, "NetNews", and used a peer to peer network called "UUCP" which is short for "unix to Unix copy" (the unix copy command being cp). One wou

Had its own protocol, "NetNews", and used a peer to peer network called "UUCP" which is short for "unix to Unix copy" (the unix copy command being cp). One would "post" a message and periodically one or more systems would poll your system. Either over the ARPAnet or via an actual modem. It would fetch all of the posts that had been created on that system and add them to its list of new posts, and it would send you all of the posts you hadn't yet seen. In a directory on your system would be all of the posts from everyone on Usenet for all of the groups you cared to "follow." Back in the 80's I could read everything posted in a couple of hours in the morning. :-) That changed quickly.