sadly the alts were a bit of a mixed bag. the root problem was that anyone could issue a control message to create a new alt group. which I verified personally. because of that intermediate nodes would choose not to download updates. partially because it was a cesspool, and largely because because bandwidth was quite limited and that's where all binaries were distributed. so alt groups had spotty distribution, which is reflected in the archives.
Dang. I had previously gone back and found some old posts I remember, I believe it was through Dejanews, so theoretically they exist out there. What's your data source?
my data source? I ran a data center in the 80s, including nntp distribution and archiving as was the general practice back then. so, just personal opinion I guess.
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Huh, where is alt.2600?
sadly the alts were a bit of a mixed bag. the root problem was that anyone could issue a control message to create a new alt group. which I verified personally. because of that intermediate nodes would choose not to download updates. partially because it was a cesspool, and largely because because bandwidth was quite limited and that's where all binaries were distributed. so alt groups had spotty distribution, which is reflected in the archives.
Dang. I had previously gone back and found some old posts I remember, I believe it was through Dejanews, so theoretically they exist out there. What's your data source?
my data source? I ran a data center in the 80s, including nntp distribution and archiving as was the general practice back then. so, just personal opinion I guess.