Blanche wrote:
rps wrote:
This newsgroup has certainly deteriorated in the (nearly) decade that
I've been reading it (using this and other email addresses). If people
used the most appropriate newsgroups for their postings, the value of
the newsgroups increases for everyone. If people post blindly to
whichever newsgroup is most convenient or will provoke the most
reaction, the newsgroups lose value for us all. Sadly, it has lost
value for at least one of our contributors.

A decade. Hm...that's when they started selling computers at
the grocery store. Pick your color and price, no need to read the
back of the box for the instructions. And the bag boy/girl will even
carry it out to the car for you.


No, I think that's a more recent phenomenon. I started reading this
newsgroup about a decade ago at around the same time I started getting
serious about flying and earned my instrument ticket. To my
recollection, there were no megastores that sold PCs around that time.
My first post to a newsgroup was in 1986, when I started using usenet
on a terminal connected to a network of VAXes ("vixen") and IBM 3/60s.
I started using computers in 1979 when I first learned to program and
logged into BBS's using 110bps modems.