Is there a way to read the comp.unix Usenet discussions (and others) using the software that was used then? I'd like to read it to learn, but I can do a bit of escapism at the same time. Besides, as Usenet was so immense in popularity, probably that software wasn't bad at all. I found trn (threaded read news program), and, with export NNTPSERVER=Aioe.org, I get something, but not anything sensible to read. It seems, you should put newsgroups in a .newsrc file. Does anyone know how to do this if it is indeed possible?
Read Usenet comp.unix and more with back-then software (trn)
usenet
For most Unix-based newsreaders, you need a $HOME/.newsrc file. It tracks (by article number) which articles you've already read in each newsgroup..newsrc is a plain text file. To start with, you can just created it with the name of each newsgroup you want to read on a line by itself, with a : appended to it.I don't believe comp.unix still exists, but there are a number of newsgroups in the comp.unix.* hierarchy.For example:comp.unix.misc:comp.unix.programmer:comp.unix.shell:Newsreaders (such as trn will generally have ways to get a list of all newsgroups and to subscribe and unsubscribe to newsgroups; you might not need to edit .newsrc manually (but you might as well, at least initially).aoie.org is one free NNTP server -- but as I understand it it's fairly heavily used by spammers, and some Usenet participants ignore articles posted from there. I use eternal-september.org myself. You have to set up a free account and create a $HOME/.authinfo file; see their web page for more information.A number of Usenet newsgroups are still quite active. (I hang out in comp.lang.c myself.) Servers other than groups.google.com don't save articles for more than a few months. Google doesn't provide an NNTP interface -- and its web interface has some serious problems.My own preferred Usenet client program is Gnus, which runs under emacs; you'll probably like Gnus if and only if you like emacs.