4 ms·

Can someone explain how Google Groups has posts from 1990?

by ajaimk 3y ago

ChrisClark 3y ago
They bought all the Usenet archives, I forget what company it was though, Dejanews?
- magicalhippo 3y ago
  Indeed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Groups#Deja_News https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Groups#Deja_News They still have one of my favorite posts: https://groups.google.com/g/sci.nanotech/c/QlsQPORilE8 https://groups.google.com/g/sci.nanotech/c/QlsQPORilE8
  - pmarreck 3y ago
    I loved that post but got annoyed by all the grammar fails so I asked chatgpt4 to not only correct it but add some Douglas Adams flavor. Here is the result: https://gist.github.com/pmarreck/7092d28f3d9bf8dff99faa61d01f1176 https://gist.github.com/pmarreck/7092d28f3d9bf8dff99faa61d01...
- ern 3y ago
  They bought Dejanews, but then some people donated their archives dating back to the 80's and they were integrated into Google News. https://web.archive.org/web/20011212191924/https://www.google.com/googlegroups/archive_announce_20.html https://web.archive.org/web/20011212191924/https://www.googl...
smcameron 3y ago
It's (some of) the old DejaNews stuff.
ur-whale 3y ago
> Can someone explain how Google Groups has posts from 1990? They bought Dejanews which brought in a large chunk of what was available on usenet. But there was also a team inside Google that was specifically tasked with hunting ancient newsgroup archives from where ever they could find it, and a lot of people on the net contributed what they had archived. For example some people physically mailed them stacks of CD's in cardboard boxes. Kudos to that team for merging the whole mess into a usable, so far ever-lasting resource.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
peterfirefly 3y ago
Indirectly thanks to Henry Spencer who is in that thread. He made tape backups at his sysadmin job and those tape backups eventually migrated into bigger and more organized online archives. (Not every old usenet post is due to his backups but many are.)

Can someone explain how Google Groups has posts from 1990?

by ajaimk 3y ago

Can someone explain how Google Groups has posts from 1990?

ChrisClark 3y ago

They bought all the Usenet archives, I forget what company it was though, Dejanews?

magicalhippo 3y ago
Indeed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Groups#Deja_News https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Groups#Deja_News They still have one of my favorite posts: https://groups.google.com/g/sci.nanotech/c/QlsQPORilE8 https://groups.google.com/g/sci.nanotech/c/QlsQPORilE8
- pmarreck 3y ago
  I loved that post but got annoyed by all the grammar fails so I asked chatgpt4 to not only correct it but add some Douglas Adams flavor. Here is the result: https://gist.github.com/pmarreck/7092d28f3d9bf8dff99faa61d01f1176 https://gist.github.com/pmarreck/7092d28f3d9bf8dff99faa61d01...
ern 3y ago
They bought Dejanews, but then some people donated their archives dating back to the 80's and they were integrated into Google News. https://web.archive.org/web/20011212191924/https://www.google.com/googlegroups/archive_announce_20.html https://web.archive.org/web/20011212191924/https://www.googl...

smcameron 3y ago

It's (some of) the old DejaNews stuff.

ur-whale 3y ago

> Can someone explain how Google Groups has posts from 1990? They bought Dejanews which brought in a large chunk of what was available on usenet. But there was also a team inside Google that was specifically tasked with hunting ancient newsgroup archives from where ever they could find it, and a lot of people on the net contributed what they had archived. For example some people physically mailed them stacks of CD's in cardboard boxes. Kudos to that team for merging the whole mess into a usable, so far ever-lasting resource.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

peterfirefly 3y ago

Indirectly thanks to Henry Spencer who is in that thread. He made tape backups at his sysadmin job and those tape backups eventually migrated into bigger and more organized online archives. (Not every old usenet post is due to his backups but many are.)