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Context

I've been browsing through comp.lang.forth usenet posts and have found some fascinating gems such as this one here on minimal Forth implementations.

Makes me wonder if it's possible to browse through the CLF postings in reverse order from when the usenet group was first started...

To this end, I downloaded Forte's Agent 7 usenet newsreader for Windows, and set it up to point to Eternal September as the news server.

This works great in pulling back the 30K postings from 2010 onward.

But it's clear by going to CLF on Google Groups, that there are messages that go back much further than this. In fact, i've been able to find postings from almost 30 yaers ago --- 1988.

Question:

Is there a way to access more headers than eternal-september appears to retain? How far back could I go? Is there another source that would allow going back to 1988?

Thanks

Appendix:

In Agent 7, I've tried from the main menu:

Action > Get Headers > Sample Recent Headers...

And I've set the field: Retrieve all messages posted more recently than the specified date: number of days to retrieve = 10,000 (i.e. after 11 Aug 1986).

Nothing before 02.May.2010 is being pulled back.

Assad Ebrahim
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    You'd need to find a usenet server that has retention that far back – Journeyman Geek Mar 25 '14 at 01:15
  • @JourneymanGeek: So this is an issue with the newsserver I'm using (eternel september) and not the newsreader (Agent 7)? – Assad Ebrahim Mar 25 '14 at 01:17
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    @AssadEbrahim Correct. Most NSPs have a binary retention time of more than 4 years, but at 4 years that's roughly 9000 Terabytes of information. Going back as far as 1988 would probably be outside the realms of feasability. – Michael Frank Mar 25 '14 at 01:23
  • @MichaelFrank: I see. Do the retention limits increase if it's text only? (I'm interested in the comp.lang.forth archives) Is it possible to use Google Groups as an NSP to point my newsreader to? – Assad Ebrahim Mar 25 '14 at 01:32
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    @AssadEbrahim The issue there, is techincally everything on usenet is a text file. I'm not too familiar with the original use for Usenet, only it's more modern binary.* version. The idea is still similar however. – Michael Frank Mar 25 '14 at 01:48
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    unfortunately, there are likely no sources for usenet messages that old. – Frank Thomas Mar 25 '14 at 01:54
  • Google groups appears to have them (search for /88 in comp.lang.forth). Could google groups be used as a news server avoiding the awkward web interface? – Assad Ebrahim Mar 25 '14 at 02:00
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    Have you looked at [The Internet Archives](https://archive.org/details/usenet)? They have a historical collection of Usenet that spans more than 30 years. – Jason Aller Mar 25 '14 at 04:01
  • @JasonAller: Very interesting! Though identifying which storage file(s) contain `comp.lang.forth` postings doesn't seem easy to do... – Assad Ebrahim Mar 25 '14 at 04:25
  • https://ia600501.us.archive.org/0/items/usenet-comp.lang/ has some comp.lang.forth.mac, but you are right that the interface isn't comprehensive. – Jason Aller Mar 25 '14 at 04:30
  • @JasonAller: Neat. How did you obtain the listing? The directories aren't themselves browseable. Is there a search tool somewhere? – Assad Ebrahim Mar 25 '14 at 04:36
  • I went to "Browse by Subject / Keywords" and then used a cntl+F search function to look for partial matches. Then when I clicked on a match I went to title link and then to the "All Files: HTTPS" link on the left hand side. – Jason Aller Mar 25 '14 at 04:40
  • @JasonAller: That works! Oddly, the comp.lang.forth.mac gz file only has posts back to Feb of this year. Unfortunate that comp.lang.forth was not there... What partial match did you use to find clfm? My various searches failed to reproduce what you found. – Assad Ebrahim Mar 25 '14 at 05:02
  • I started with "comp.lang" – Jason Aller Mar 25 '14 at 05:07

1 Answers1

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Here's what I have found on the question:

  1. Can Google Groups be used as a newsserver?
    No... It's designed as a web-interface.

  2. What's a good free text-based news server?
    Eternal September... and they retain 4 years of text data.

  3. Can we get postings from further back?
    Possible. Various low-cost pay services advertise higher retention.
    In particular, Agent Premium advertises 3300 days retention for text-based newsgroups -- that's just under 10 years, so to about 2005 -- UPDATE: Just tried this -- indeed, they have postings dating back to July 2003 -- 11 years ago. As another alternative, Derkeiler.com also holds text-based newsgroups back to 2005 (about 10 years), but does so in a web-browseable archive, which makes using a newsreader difficult.

  4. Can we get hold of anything older than 10 years?
    Yes, but it's not easy. Apparently, Google Group archives go back over 20 years, but the problem is (quote) "that it’s hard to just browse a newsgroup – everything is search oriented, not browse oriented."
    You can verify that the archives go back to at least 1990 by searching for Julian Noble in comp.lang.forth and sorting by date (note: you'll have to scroll down quite a bit...) (A bit of Google Groups history -- apparently Google Groups is the moved and renamed fate of DejaNews, a company Google acquired in 2001.)

(thanks to Journeyman G., Michael F., and Frank T. for their helpful comments)

Assad Ebrahim
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