File hist96.txt from ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/pd2/hist9196.zip
by Prof. Timo Salmi, Mon 30-December-1996 17:14:09

Here is my highly subjective look back at 1996 from an archive site
maintainer's, a newsgroup's co-moderator's and Usenet newsgroups'
reader's point of view.

   January: The first acquisition of the year to Garbo was
 469592 Dec 21 02:28 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/virus/scn-228e.zip
 scn-228e.zip McAfee VirusScan for DOS, SCAN.EXE
The first release of my own of the year was
 93045 Jan 1 09:31 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tsfaqp29.zip
 tsfaqp29.zip Common Turbo Pascal Questions and Timo's answers
This material is the most popular of my own files on Garbo's
download statistics. Its version number independent URL is
ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/link/tsfaqp.zip.
   The corresponding subjective lookback at the year 1995 was
favorably received. I got many nice messages from Garbo's fans about
it. Thank you. That lookback can be found stored for posterity :-)
in ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/pd2/hist9196.zip.
   The SimTel quiet continued in news:comp.archives.msdos.announce.
This began to build some pressure on other sites. On the other hand
there was a marked decrease also in news:comp.archives.msdos.d
posting volume.
   On the WWW front listed my major scientific publications, since
that is my true principal interest (if you pardon the pun) although
most net users that know me are naturally much better familiar with
my Garbo and Usenet news programs related activities.
   The congestion of the inane crossposted OS advocacy debates raged
on in news:comp.os.msdos.apps and news:comp.os.msdos.misc. (There
was no letup by the end of the year.) Unsubscribed them for a spell
even if the groups usually are relevant for an FTP site maintainer.
   Again a new Garbo mirror, DACOM Corp., Seoul, Korea.
   The long dormant news:comp.virus came back on-line with a new
moderator and an old acquaintance Nick Fitzgerald.
   The most usual question in news:comp.binaries.ibm.pc.wanted has
become the per se relevant "where can I find such and such device
driver?". This is easy to understand since the standard programs can
be found by the users themselves by just looking at the FTP sites'
file lists.
   The idea of news:comp.archives.windows-ms.announce was brought
up by a reader, but nothing whatsoever followed.

   February: The first South American Garbo mirror came on line in
Sao Paulo, Brazil bringing up the number of Garbo mirrors to 26.
   The traffic looking for programs in news:alt.comp.shareware was
starting to rival that of news:comp.binaries.ibm.pc.wanted.
   One big MS-DOS theme of the month was was "DOS Command Line
Utility to show Total Space used in a directory". Also the too
widely crossposted question on making long paths was heavily
discussed.
   In news:news.admin.net-abuse.misc the justifications for
canceling binary postings from discussion newsgroups (where they do
not belong) was debated under the caption of "Open Response to
Richard E Depew". Richard is the leading proponent of what has
become know as retroactive moderation.
   Massive binary bombing of news:news.admin.net-abuse.misc.
Probably as a defiance. The resident pros quickly dealt with it.
   Made a new public directory at Garbo. It was /pc/queue/
"Submissions queued for later consideration" since that was for the
time being the only way somehow to cope with the manpower shortage
in Garbo moderation. Our search for apprentices for Garbo continued.
   As could be excepted PKWARE's pkzip version for Windows
pkzws201.exe became a huge downloading favorite after it was
uploaded to Garbo. Keith Petersen publicly announced "Simtel.Net is
at Walnut Creek CDROM, my new employer. I no longer work for Coast
to Coast." He also told that setting up the new site would take a
few weeks.

   March: Two university's computer science students, Juha Makinen
and Ahti Nevalainen joined as apprentices the Garbo moderators. This
was more than welcome, since the worst lags in the upload queue
extended to months. Resumed accepting new Windows 3.1 uploads.
   We acquired the potential of using PGP signatures.
   Garbo became an IWay choice for the 500 best Web sites. Earlier
the University of Vaasa made it as the only Finnish university to PC
Magazine's list of the Best 1001 Internet Sites in the December 1995
issue.
   Misplaced binary postings in news:comp.binaries.ibm.pc.wanted
which is a discussion-only newsgroup. Usually the well-meaning
poster's receive constructively the information about how binaries
should be properly distributed (via FTP sites and the dedicated
binary newsgroups). But every now and then there are belligerent
individuals who want to contest what the readers originally voted
for when the newsgroup was created in accordance with the generally
accepted Usenet newsgroups creation process.
   An increasing number in news:comp.binaries.ibm.pc.wanted of
non-conforming requests for parts of commercial packages and
misplaced requests to buy commercial packages from other users.
   For some time our users have quite correctly suggested that
Garbo's WWW file lists should also include the file size
information. Ari programmed the necessary changes to our scripts. In
addition to the file size we added the file date information.
   David Lawrence brought up the comp.binaries.ibm.pc situation and
the question of finding a new moderators was discussed. Nothing
followed.
   The RFD (Request For Discussion) was posted by Rich Graves
rich@c2.org to suggest comp.archives.ms-windows.{announce,discuss}
newsgroups.

   April: I was cross-country skiing in Lapland away from the
archives and the net. Good skiing!
   Jeff Marraccini informed that The OAK Repository would no longer
carry the Coast to Coast Software Repository(tm) as of April 29,
1996.
   The overwhelming tide of all kinds of advocacy crosspostings
still kept news:comp.os.msdos.misc and news:comp.os.msdos.apps
virtually crippled.
   A controversy in news:comp.compression about TinyHAP being or not
being an infringement on the Hamarsoft HAP archiver.

   May: We had to close Garbo's Windows incoming directory for the
time begin because of inadequate manpower resources.
   A debate in news:news.admin.net-abuse.misc about Richard Depew's
bincancels service.
   Much of my own time was taken up by academic research and making
part of it available on the World Wide Web. The URL reference to the
material is http://uwasa.fi/~ts/#publicat.
   Also away from Vaasa for a couple of weeks.

   June: The Garbo queues had again overflowed because we had not
enough capacity to take care of them.
   Garbo moderator and system administrator Ari Hovila went
on a leave of absence to take care of the University Library's
electronic database project. Tommi Rintala came in for him to
maintain Garbo.
   Some belligerent users tried to force their binary posting on
news:comp.binaries.ibm.pc.wanted telling the rest of the readers
that they'll do whatever they see fit. Richard Depew's bincancels
took care of that.
   A discussion in news:comp.archives.msdos.d what to do when a
shareware company no more can be found.
   Mika Koykka joined as a CS apprentice to handle submissions to
Garbo archives. I was very pleased how diligent he turned out to be.
   A problem that has been with the comp.archives.msdos.* from the
beginning has been that contrary their names they covered also
Windows programs. The reason for the situation was that at the time
of getting the comp.archives.msdos.* newsgroups created in 1992
there were so many issues to take care of. Finally the 19th of June
1996 the corresponding MS-Windows newsgroups came into existence:
    1) news:comp.archives.ms-windows.announce
       Announcements about Windows archives. (Moderated)
    2) news:comp.archives.ms-windows.discuss
       Discussing Microsoft Windows archives.
Prepared the relevant FAQ ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/pd2/camwfaq.zip.
  Some bickering in news:comp.archives.msdos.d about the Coast to
Coast Software Collections vs. the Simtel.Net repository.

   July: At long last Garbo's Windows 3.x uploading directory
/windows/incoming could be reopened for new submissions.
   The new news:comp.archives.ms-windows.discuss kept often being
somewhat off-topic with general Windows questions instead of the
newsgroup's assigned purpose relating to "Microsoft Windows
archives".
   Mika Koykka was doing an excellent job of keeping the Garbo
queues at bay with his efficient handling of the submissions.
   No end in sight to the inane crossposted OS advocacy debates in
news:comp.os.msdos.misc.
   On vacation.

   August: Got interested and involved in the process of drawing up
the bincancel FAQ by Shaun Davis-Gluyas.
   Henry Aro joined Mika Koykka as a second CS apprentice to handle
submissions to Garbo archives.
   After dismally cold June and July in Finland the month of August
turned unusually warm and sunny. This kept me nicely a bit more than
usual off my Garbo activities riding my bicycle.

   September: A brief pause in handling submissions to Garbo
archives because the CS apprentices' computer broke down.
   Still nothing about a new news:comp.binaries.ibm.pc moderator. I
would understand an inactivity of a few months, but years!?
   A quiet, but for me interesting new moderated Usenet newsgroup
news:sci.finance.abstracts. Some interesting off-news discussions on
what constitutes a publication with the introduction of electronic
publishing along the traditional refereed journals printed on paper.
   An increasing number of unwelcome junk advertising email. Took
some enhanced filtering counter-measures.
   Electronic journals using WWW are in the coming. Personally I am
a member B>Quest Electronic Journal Editorial Board. This journal is
mostly in the field of economics, but cover near areas as well. The
URL is http://www.westga.edu/~busn/b_quest/ .
   My Turbo Pascal FAQ was adopted in cooperation for a computer
science class at the University of Alberta. That's nice.

   October: Garbo's system disk decided to crash on the first
weekend of the month causing a stall in the proceedings. The
problems persisted.
   Much thanks to the persistence and enthusiasm of our CS
apprentice Henry Aro Garbo's Windows 95 section was finally opened.
   Tommi Rintala devised thumbnail images to Garbo's astronomy
section for an easier selection of the images for the user to
download. Neat! Tommi and I subsequently rearranged Garbo's
astronomy directory structure. Garbo's astronomy section is at its
best when browsed from http://garbo.uwasa.fi/Astro.html. As the
saying goes "check it out".

   November: Not any actual notes, because of being so occupied with
my joint academic research projects. You'll have to recall that
while I am involved with Garbo, my main interests and profession lie
elsewhere.

   December: A regrettable start to the month. Had to close Garbo's
Windows incoming directories, because we no longer had the manpower
resources to handle the Windows submissions. The term of our two CS
apprentices, who had take care of most of the handling of authors'
submissions to Garbo, came to a close. They went back to school.
   Changed my address to omit.nospam.ts@uwasa.fi in some of the
newsgroups where bulk junk advertising emailers stalk for their
prey.
   If one discussion recurs at regular intervals it is software
piracy vs. paying for shareware. This time the discussion was took
place in news:alt.comp.shareware.programmer and was labeled "Warez
idiocy"
   As Mr. Murphy would have it the Finnish independence day was on
Friday the 6th December. Garbo crashed on Friday morning so most of
the weekend was lost.
   David Lawrence, who has the final authority over newsgroups,
announced "Looking for New Moderator for news:comp.binaries.ibm.pc".
The former moderator Vinit Carpenter had abandoned the newsgroup
over a year ago, but had for some reason stalled any chance of a new
moderator.
   Posters get their infantile kicks of all kinds of mayhem. The
latest has some jerk putting news:comp.lang.pascal.misc on different
mailing lists. You see comp.lang.pascal.misc is also a mailing list
itself besides a regular Usenet newsgroup. As a consequence the
mailing list was closed towards the end of the month. The drop in
the newsgroup's posting volume as a consequence of closing the
mailing list was dramatic.
   Tommi Rintala, who is Garbo's acting system maintainer on the
side of his other task in our computer centre, went on a
well-deserved vacation from 14-Dec-96 to 8-Jan-97.
   It seems that a lot of the traffic from the old newsgroups
news:comp.binaries.ibm.pc.wanted and news:comp.archives.msdos.d has
gradually been drifting to news:alt.comp.shareware.
   The fourth anniversary of the comp.archives.msdos newsgroups on
the 15th of December.
   Bought two MS-DOS 5.0 / Windows 3.11 133Mhz Pentium PCs for my
wife's and my own home usage. I have not had Windows at home before,
but now I am able e.g. view WWW material at home. This also enables
me to check if there are problems with my ts-programs when run in a
Windows dos box. Obviously there are!

The scope of the Garbo archives at the end of the year:
                 1995 1996       1995 1996
                 ---- ----       ---- ----
      /pc         528  675 Mb    4730 5249 MS-DOS files
      /windows    192  309 Mb     890 1045 Windows 3.1x files
      /win95        -   30 Mb       -  113 Windows 95 files
      /linux      132    2 Mb     653    6 Linux files
      /unix        60   64 Mb     354  370 Unix files
      /mac         48   49 Mb     149  143 Mac files
      /next        40   40 Mb     134  132 Next files
      /X11          9    9 Mb      91   91 X11 files
      /ql           1    1 Mb     100  104 Sinclair QL files

That was it folks, for 1996. Happy New Year 1997. Cya!

   All the best, Timo

....................................................................
Prof. Timo Salmi   Co-moderator of news:comp.archives.msdos.announce
Moderating at ftp:// & http://garbo.uwasa.fi archives  193.166.120.5
Department of Accounting and Business Finance  ; University of Vaasa
mailto:ts@uwasa.fi  <URL:http://uwasa.fi/~ts>  ; FIN-65101,  Finland
