From garbo.uwasa.fi:/pc/pd2/hist93.zip by Timo Salmi Fri 31-Dec-93

Here is my very subjective look back at 1993 from an archive site
maintainer's, a newsgroup's co-moderator's and UseNet newsgroups'
reader's point of view.

   January: PKZ204C.EXE appeared at wuarchive's unguarded public
uploads directory. Someone at once used the opportunity. There was
an immediate trojan / virus / hack alert in comp.compression. True
or false, no one knows.
   During the first 24 hours since I made the proper pkz204c.exe
available at Garbo, there were some 800 downloads of it. The
disappointing thing was that pkz204c turned out to be an unfinished
product with a prohibitive number of bugs. Consequently Garbo
archives stayed with PKZIP version 1.10 compatible files.
   Not surprisingly, compression programs were a big topic and top
downloads in January.
   The December 1992 Simtel CD-ROM arrived.

   February: PKZIP204G.EXE was a much more finished product than the
original, and not surprisingly topped Garbo's download statistics by
a multiple. We kept to 1.10 compatible files, however, because we
wished to be sure that the new version was stable. (Later it turned
out that 2.04G was ok.)
   Garbo's standard upload queue got totally stalled and overflowed.
It grew to be almost three months long.
   It took until the middle of February before the first true
unpleasantness in the new comp.archives.msdos.d, that is almost two
months since the introduction of this (at that time) pristine
newsgroup. But when in came, we had a repugnant and an uncommonly
insistent flame throwing by a single individual on our hands. It
went on unabated for quite awhile until general kill file advice and
even some more drastic measures were employed by my U.S. friends to
muzzle the perpetrator.
   There was once again, this time a rather lame, discussion about
which method, zoo or zip should be used in comp.binaries.ibm.pc
binary postings. Strangely the last the whole year.

   March: The stalled Garbo queue started moving again, even if
sluggishly.
   The planet probe gif pictures I got from JPL to Garbo turned out
to be very popular.
   Started accepting PKZIP 2.04G compatible files to Garbo.
   Comp.binaries.ibm.pc.archives deadline (15-March-1993) expired
and the newsgroup finally became officially obsolete. As the users
may recall, the current comp.archives.msdos.d newsgroup was voted by
an the highest ever UseNet majority (that far) to replace
CBIP.archives in December 1992.
   In general was too busy to really take care of this history file.

   April: The end of April saw a couple of acquisitions which turned
out to be very popular, dazzle50.zip screen display and saver, and
lha255b.exe beta version of the LHA archiver.
   A second successive, blessfully troublefree month on the Usenet
news. The comp.archives.msdos newsgroups settled to a routine way of
life.
   The Garbo backlog queue had become so long that I began
considering drastic measures to cut it. For example, I callously
deleted all non-zipped files, and all files where the most recent
file in the package date back to more than a year. Later we stopped
altogether accepting files in any other format that .zip.
   SIMTEL20 started accepting PKZIP 2.04G compatible files but kept
for policy reasons (encryption technology export controversies) to
Info-ZIP's programming groups corresponding, free products.

   May: On the positive side, the Garbo backlog started moving again
down from the hundred files is was. The queue was resolved by the
end of the month. In order to cope with the incoming material, we
decided to adopt a much tougher line in rejecting nonconforming
uploads.
   On the negative side comp.archives.msdos.d that is CAM.d had a
seemingly unending and totally misplaced discussion about the
various floppy disk formats.
   A ridiculous complaint surfaced, directed against the CBIP
moderator Brian O'Neill about not accepting some .arc files which
the regular MsDos FTP sites did not want either.
   Occasional postings still got appearing in the obsolete
comp.binaries.ibm.pc.archives newsgroup showing how long it can take
to effectively remove a newsgroup from circulation.
   The next version of SIMTEL20 CD-ROM was announced. My own
programs kept coming up on several different CD-ROMs.
   There was a heavy discussion on the preferred extension of
gzipped files in comp.compression. As we later know .gz won out.

   June: As Harri Valkama decided to go on a full time leave of
absence from the autumn Ari Hovila (ajh@uwasa.fi) joined in Garbo
maintaining tasks. This came at an appropriate moment, since I has
about to be inundated. Plans were made to move Garbo physically to a
different building, but they fell through, and Garbo stayed
physically put (and so consequently did the IP number).
   A greater than average number of uploads had to be rejected at
Garbo because of the uploaders' omissions to email us their upload
announcements, recreational games uploads, and no documentation in
some uploads. This unfortunate new trend seems still to continue (a
consequence of increased popularity?)
   Roberts Jung's long-awaited arj241.exe came out. Already during
the first eight hours after the announcement there had been about
300 downloads. This is typical. In the long run the archivers and
virus scanners top Garbo download statistics, and new versions
always cause such peaks.

  July: A typical case of a discussion that dispersed in many (also
irrelevant) directions occurred crossposted in several msdos and
windows newsgroups about "human rights, and Microsoft Corp".
   Another dubious summer escapade on the UseNet news was a "make
money fast" chain letter.
  A virus scare was reported about Telemate version 4.11. The
particular version fortunately never was on Garbo, and with the
introduction of the 4.12 version the problem disappeared. (But was
replaced by distribution limitation problems.)
  At last, there were no more postings in the obsolete newsgroup
comp.binaries.ibm.pc.archives which comp.archives.msdos.d replaced
in December 1992.
  Garbo's upload queues no longer posed an insurmountable problem
thanks to Ari Hovila's assiduous maintenance.
  At the end of the month the "SIMTEL20 going down?" information
surfaced, and started a "save SIMTEL20" campaign.

   August: I don't know much of what happened on the first half of
August since I was unavailable on an involuntary leave of absence
because of the Finnish government's drastic cuts on our university
system. On that side the future does not look bright for the Finnish
educational system.
   Towards the end of the month there was a big discussion about
cracking to sites in Newsgroups: alt.security, comp.misc, and
comp.admin.policy. A good example of a recurring problem and a
recurring discussion with quite predictable arguments hence and
forth.
   Vaasa FreePort BBS was set up with three telephone lines. It
offers an alternative access to Garbo's files.
   Quiet on the "save SIMTEL20" front.
   At Garbo more and more non-compliant uploads (but a kind of sign
of wide popularity). Many of them come without any emaild upload
announcement, or are in categories that Garbo does not carry in its
specializing role.

   September: A per se interesting discussion on "Pascal or C as a
first language" that (you guessed it) went on and on in
comp.lang.pascal and some C newsgroups. Only a discussion on the
best choice of an editor could be more typical of adamant beliefs
and ample conjecture :-).
   Simtel20 uploads were frozen as of the 17th of September.
   Info-ZIP programming team's portable zip version 2.0 was
announced.
   Season for retirements? Brian 'Doc' O'Neill announced his
retirement from comp.binaries.ibm.pc moderation by the end of the
year. (He later extended.) Stan Brown retired from MsDos
programmers' comp.os.msdos.programmer FAQ maintenance at least
partly because of unfair criticism about his FAQ referrals. (Isn't
there a saying about biting the hand that feeds you?)
   The pc-up@uwasa.fi and win-up@uwasa.fi aliases were introduced at
Garbo for the uploaders' announcements. Using the correct aliases is
a compulsory prerequisite for getting one's upload submissions into
the Garbo queues. Uploads without these announcements to the correct
address are automatically rejected summarily.

   October: The new SimTel announcement started flowing again in mid
October. A very welcome development.
   The new SimTel copyright policy caused (please forgive me:
typically North American) consternation in comp.archives.msdos.d. As
a Finn, coming from another culture, I had at times difficulties in
following what was supposed to be the problem. As far as I am
concerned the important thing was that the SimTel files were again
publicly available.
   As a new phenomenon Windows files started sharing the top of
Garbo's download statistics. A heavy favorite of the month was
WinLite, which was surrounded by some controversy, which fortunately
was soon resolved.
   A vicious quarrel kept raging in news.groups about vote rigging
and forgery for a comp.dcom.telecom.tech newsgroup.
   The coding to distinguish SimTel announcements from the subject
header was discussed in CAM.d. (The coding simply became a hyphen).
   Our FreePort BBS was becoming increasingly popular. So popular in
fact that it started causing problems sharing the same Sun
SPARCstation IPX with Garbo. The process for new arrangements was
initiated.

   November: A round of "What makes people register shareware?"
emerged in comp.archives.msdos.d. Deja vu. It was the first time in
cam.d but the same question has recycled at some intervals in other
comp newsgroups.
   The MsDos 6.2 "StepUp" upgrade availability from the MicroSoft
BBS while not from the FTP sites was a big topic on the UseNet news.
About half a month later the MicroSoft FTP site ftp.microsoft.com
offered the StepUp. The upgrade and the problems with it were
heavily discussed in the msdos newsgroups. Personally I prefer
versions 3.3 and 5.0.
   A new problem was noticed in some SimTel and Garbo uploads, both
new and old. It was the propensity of the authors to impose
distribution limitations on their utilities. Such utilities will not
not be carried, and much was deleted during November, because the
sites do not limit access and, besides, are available on CD-ROMs
(SimTel or rather the old SIMTEL20 in particular). For example all
Baker's utilities were deleted. Personally, I find these shareware
distribution limitations harmful above all to the authors
themselves.
   Plans and the decision were made to move Vaasa FreePort BBS to a
machine of its own away from Garbo whose capacity was becoming
stretched because of the BBS load. The time of the move was expected
to be about the turn of the year. The move will warrant a
reevaluation of our BBS policy with respect to whom we give an
access. The emphasis will probably be local. What is to be done with
the foreign BBS remains to be seen, but the overseas user
applications were frozen.

   December: Garbo upload queue growing long again. The rate of the
incoming material is so heavy. Sadly as much as about half the
uploads have to be rejected since the gentle uploaders do not read
/pc/UPLOAD.INF and fail to email us the compulsory upload
announcements (or get it all wrong).
   Some discussion in comp.lang.pascal and news.admin.policy how to
avoid troublesome posters.
   There was a thread "1000 to 1 compression utility" in CAM.d,
which seemed to be some kind of a joke.
   The programmers' hit of the month at Garbo was /pc/turbopas/
allswag.zip "SWAG: A huge library of PD Turbo Pascal code". It was
followed by some copyright discussions in comp.lang.pascal.
   The anniversary of comp.archives.msdos newsgroups was the 15th of
December. The newsgroups came were created after a long process (see
hist92.zip). The anniversary passed virtually unnoticed.
   I set up more upload announcement aliases, unix-up@uwasa.fi for
the Unix uploads and ql-up@uwasa.fi for the Sinclair QL uploads.
   I experimentally created a /pc/research directory at Garbo for
scientific electronic papers in accounting, finance, operations
research, production economics and computer science.
   Just an observation since I have nothing to do with it nor do I
have any stake in it, but I read the newsgroup. The newsgroup
news.groups which is for the steps of creating new newsgroups and
newsgroups issues in general has become a really amazing forum. Much
of it is taken up by innane rantings and endless bickering and
parrying. An deplorable example of how a newsgroup can go sour.
Another of the many lines of quarrels in news.groups was about
"retromoderation".
   Surprise, surprise, a make money fast chain letter surfaced. As
far as I can judge the incident was dealt with firmly at the origin.
   It seems like the updating of "The Most Useful PC Programs at
SimTel and Garbo" was resumed.
   The general FTP site /pc/doc-net/ftp-list.zip list finally got a
new maintainer Perry Rovers. The maintanance was discontinued by the
previous maintainer Tom Czarnik in March. (The maintainer before Tom
was Jon Granrose.)
   Brian O'Neill at least postponed his earlier retirement from
moderating comp.binaries.ibm.pc. He also told about a later advisory
vote about converting from the .zoo format to the .zip format in
CBIP.

   All the best, Timo

..................................................................
Prof. Timo Salmi      Co-moderator of comp.archives.msdos.announce
Moderating at garbo.uwasa.fi anonymous FTP  archives  128.214.87.1
Faculty of Accounting & Industrial Management; University of Vaasa
Internet: ts@uwasa.fi   BBS +(358)-61-3170972; FIN-65101,  Finland
