Usenet Newsgroups History, Who Invented Usenet Newsgroups, How The Usenet Newsgroups Were Invented

General comment: the volume of Netnews (in MB/day) has doubled every year since Usenet was started, and it shows no signs of letting up.

- Mark Horton; usenet/history/1985-1990; 26 Sep 1990.

We estimated a maximum size of 100 sites, and 1-2 articles a day, net-wide...

- Steve Bellovin; usenet/history/1985-1990; 10 Oct 1990.

Who invented Usenet newsgroups? Usenet was the first Internet peer-to-peer technology. Originally created just to share files between computers, it evolved into a natural net-wide hierarchy of eight major categories plus a catch-call. The following sections provide more information:

Netnews

Early Hierarchies

Network News Transfer Protocol

Modern Hierarchies

The Alt Hierarchy

BITNET

Bulletin Board Systems & FidoNet

InterNetNews

Commercialism

Old Maps.

Other resources. The following sites provide more information on Usenet history:

Horton, Mark; Subject: Re: Hello again ...; Wed Sep 26 06:34 PDT 1990

Spafford, Gene; Mark Moraes; USENET Software: History and Sources; Message-ID: <15983@ector.cs.purdue.edu>

Spafford, Gene; Email History <9009242203.AA04892@weber.ucsd.edu>

Usenet; Archive of the usenet.hist mailinglist

Various, Memories of USENET and the Years Before The Renaming.