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Aucbvax.5828 fa.digest-p utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!digest-people Sun Jan 17 14:30:17 1982 USENET on a PDP-10? >From KLH@MIT-AI Sun Jan 17 14:11:52 1982 Note that one of the big points of USENET is that only one copy of each digest or article is sent to each site...

This is true for perfectly ordinary ARPA mail as well (XRCP) and will be true for TCP mail also. Ditto MMDF, which Phonenet (cf CSNET) is using. Can you think of some other big point?

USENET (a.k.a. "the network news") currently runs only on UNIX systems but a C compiler for TOPS 20 will soon make it possible to have those sites (and probably TENEX with little work or ITS with a lot of work) join the net. The software will be released at the end of the month and at that time anyone and everyone will be invited to join.

So sorry, but I don't believe this. Sure, people will be invited, but have you told them yet that they'll have to fork over a stiff price for the UNIX license??? Even though they don't need UNIX and won't have it. The TOPS-20 C compiler at Utah is PCC-derived, meaning Western Electric holds the strings. I think this was a big mistake on the part of the implementors, since it means you can't go around making statements like the one above about "release". Boy, that compiler mess really pushes my FLAME button, doesn't it...

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