1979. Long before the birth of the internet, Tom Truscott, Steve Bellovin and Jim Ellis developed a way to communicate via Unix computers at two American universities. It was a successful alternative to the Arpanet, which was operated by the US military and research facilities. From then on there was Usenet and the way was open for data exchange. The rest is history.
In 1980, 15 computers were connected, exchanging about ten messages a day. After that, the number grew exponentially: in 1985, no fewer than 1300 computers were connected to the network.
Even though Usenet was around much earlier than the internet, the internet (World Wide Web) was preferred for a long time. Internet had a user-friendly interface due to its HTML and was easy to operate. In contrast to Usenet, which seemed too complex for users due to its hierarchical structure. The Usenet has continued to develop in parallel with the Internet. Various programmers and companies have developed software, which has made the Usenet more accessible and simpler. Today, the Usenet is the counterpart of the Internet and connects thousands of news servers.
Thanks to further development, the Usenet is now accessible to all Internet users. This has made it much easier to find and download content. A major investment, which has helped the popularity of the Usenet to soar and continue to grow. And Tom Truscott can also be found on the Usenet every day looking for interesting topics and content.
The Usenet began with communication via telephone. The UUCP (Unix to Unix Copy) protocol became the standard for exchanging data. Later, with the advent of the Internet (WWW), Usenet was also transmitted via this connection and the NNTP (Network News Transfer Protocol) protocol was born. Since then, the Usenet has mainly used NNTP.