Oh Mr Fenwick

[Mike@TheWhippinpost]

A blast from the (NNTP) past. Just found, quite by chance, our old friend, quick-finger Rob Fenwick. He's moved on to "higher" things it seems: Rob Fenwick, a Northumbrian abroad.

I must say, I still remain impressed at the remarkable speed and decorum in which he handled that thread. I remember dialing-up, refreshing, disconnecting, reading, replying, then dialling-up and refreshing again only to find another long line of fresh replies to read-thru - and he was thick amongst it all the way; and this was in the evening.

[Ben]

Could you give some of us 'newcomers' a back story?

[Mike@TheWhippinpost]

Rob used to work for Future Publishing back in the dial-up days of the interweb when online forums were mainly newsgroups read in Outlook Express via NNTP.

Many of the founder members here originally met on .Net's newsgroup.

"Oh Mr Fenwick" was a thread exposing Future's plans to move away from NNTP to - shock - http; in other words, on the web through a browser.

The thread went mental into the early hours. We were all up-in-arms about the move. I remember replies coming in faster than I could read them. I would chip in here and there, refresh, and find Rob had answered like 5 other replies in the same time.

How times change - I couldn't imagine going back to NNTP now. I wonder how many of those people who swore they'd never use a forum via a browser stuck to their word

[Tony]

Mind you, it was their very poor implementation of a web forum that gave rise to DDN

[sickpuppy]

Mind you, it was their very poor implementation of a web forum that gave rise to DDN

Do you still have the old NNTP archived somewhere. I seem to remember you still had copies of some of the messages long after it had closed down.

[Tony]

Mind you, it was their very poor implementation of a web forum that gave rise to DDN

Do you still have the old NNTP archived somewhere. I seem to remember you still had copies of some of the messages long after it had closed down.

I might have, but it will be on a hard drive that ain't connected to anything if I do - isn't there an archive of nntp groups somewhere like the wayback machine?

[kimpossible]

Mind you, it was their very poor implementation of a web forum that gave rise to DDN

Do you still have the old NNTP archived somewhere. I seem to remember you still had copies of some of the messages long after it had closed down.

I might have, but it will be on a hard drive that ain't connected to anything if I do - isn't there an archive of nntp groups somewhere like the wayback machine?

I know google used to have an archive because I'd stumble across old posts I made....but not sure if they'd still be around now (we're talking 10 - 11 years since the old nntp days because Lois was just a baby)!

[Rosco]

I remember the old NNTP but only posted to it a handful of times just before they moved to a web forum, was that 1999?

I wasn't a huge fan of the NNTP anyway, as I used so many computers (mine, gf's, hundreds of college lab computers etc) so i didn't usually have a client configured for it, no such thing as portable USB apps back then.  So it was Snitz Forums (remember them?) FTW

[yawner]

My favourite quote from thet thread was Rob explaining that keeping nntp would cost Future "A whopping £600". Bless him, I'm sure he was capable as a technician, but as a .Net spokesperson he was totally out of his depth, 'losing it' on several, very amusing occasions. 

[civ]

Mind you, it was their very poor implementation of a web forum that gave rise to DDN

Do you still have the old NNTP archived somewhere. I seem to remember you still had copies of some of the messages long after it had closed down.

I might have, but it will be on a hard drive that ain't connected to anything if I do - isn't there an archive of nntp groups somewhere like the wayback machine?

I know google used to have an archive because I'd stumble across old posts I made....but not sure if they'd still be around now (we're talking 10 - 11 years since the old nntp days because Lois was just a baby)!

Google Groups has an archive of public NNTP groups, but .net's were on a private server so won't be covered by that.