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When did you start following the newsgroups?
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When did you start following the newsgroups regularly?
<2000
50%
 50%  [ 9 ]
2000
33%
 33%  [ 6 ]
2001
5%
 5%  [ 1 ]
2002
11%
 11%  [ 2 ]
2003
0%
 0%  [ 0 ]
Total Votes : 18

Author Message
xo
Site Admin


Joined: 09 Feb 2002
Posts: 466
Location: Los Angeles [comcast]

PostPosted: Thu Aug 07, 2003 12:28 am    Post subject: When did you start following the newsgroups? Reply with quote

Got the poll idea from the thread about old-timers

I remember it quite well - I'd just quit my job and was out of work for about a month back in July 2000. Nothing to do during the lazy carefree days, so I started exploring my cable company's news server. Downloaded something called "Love Hina", watched the opening credits and...

.. a 1000 cds and a jillion hours poring over headers later...

Do'h, where did my life go?!?

-xo
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Neuralblastoma



Joined: 19 Feb 2002
Posts: 109
Location: Ottawa Ontario Canada

PostPosted: Thu Aug 07, 2003 5:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I started downloading in summer 2000, but I don't think I posted anything to the anime groups until either the fall/winter or maybe early 2001. I can't remember now.

I think I did post a little in 2000, but using a different nick. I know I posted stuff in other groups using different nicks.

I only had a small hard-drive and no CD burner at first so I did a lot of watching and deleting.

Then in November 2000 my old hard-drive died and I lost everything.

I bought a new one right away and in December I got my first CD burner so I could start collecting anime and other stuff on CD-R's.

I now have at least 1300 CD-R's of stuff. Not just anime, but mostly.

Because of the anime groups, my anime CD-R collection now dwarfs my anime VHS collection which is in the hundreds.
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Onakra



Joined: 19 Feb 2002
Posts: 89
Location: Geldrop, Netherlands

PostPosted: Thu Aug 07, 2003 9:28 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

It was at the end of 1999; I think October or November. A whole new world opened after I switched ISPs who had a lot more binaries groups. As was good practise back then I observed quietly for quite a while. Downloading all those RMs & ASFs on a 28k8. Akira, Tenchi, Slayers, Berserk, Ranma, etc. Back then I also didn't burn much, but that has changed over time though.

Then came the posting period all over in AB(M)A, ABGA, ABPEA2 (later ABMEA) and of course ABSA. And boy, did that first post of the Utena series last long after inc posted the first 14... Later the 'sensible, helpful' period where I submitted some info for the AB(M)A FAQ and even later created the ABSA one.

And since a the beginning of 2002 I don't post too much anymore. Sometimes in ABSA a bit, but mostly it's just downloading and trying to give some info in the ABSA group to the newer people.

Anyway, I don't think I'll leave just yet. It has been a good couple of years so far. ^_^

Edit:
Heh, the oldest usenet posting (non-binary group) I can find of myself with a personal e-mail address in Google is June 2nd, 1996.
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Gorunova



Joined: 10 Feb 2002
Posts: 318
Location: Burnaby, B.C., Canada

PostPosted: Thu Aug 07, 2003 6:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've been using Usenet since 1995, but I didn't get strongly interested in anime until around 1998. I had seen it before, but only the small trickle of stuff that makes it over here - Akira, Ranma, Dirty Pair. I think discovering The Slayers was what really turned me on to anime. After that I regularly rented a stack of tapes every week. Think of me as the fat otaku from Digi Charat. Smile

I looked for and subscribed to the anime newsgroups when I moved to Vancouver in the Fall of 2000. I was unimpressed with the anime selection at the rental stores in my area, and as a student I can't afford to buy yet, so I needed another source for my fix. I also like to try before buying anyway, so even if I could afford DVDs I'd only buy series I had already seen some other way.

I mostly kept silent during the first month or two in ABA/ABMA, as I was learning the ropes. Gradually I worked up the nerve to ask for the occasional fill and to participate in some of the discussions.

I think it was less than a year later (some time in mid-2001 - holy crap, has it really been that long?) that I waded in to one of the larger flame wars about traffic levels and reposting habits, and as a result I started logging posts and posting my weekly summary in an attempt to eliminate too-soon reposts. That morphed into animeusenet.org. I'm still doing some of the logging, but I'd like to find someone to replace me soon. I want that part of my life back.

As for posting, I think I started occasional posting in late 2001. my fervent desire to reduce traffic by sticking to long reposting periods restricted me to posting stuff that hadn't been seen in a while. My general policy was nothing that had been posted less recently than 4-6 months. My biggest project was a repost of the Dirty Pair TV series in VCD format. That one got me a nastygram from my ISP for uploading too much.

I haven't posted anything for months now because I've been busy with my thesis work, and now I'm looking for a full time job and I might have to move, so I'm not sure when I'll get a chance to resume.

My collection stands at about 800 CDRs. Its growth has slowed since my ISP asked me to cut down.
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earthdark



Joined: 21 Feb 2002
Posts: 73

PostPosted: Thu Aug 07, 2003 8:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

You people have too good of memories, either that or I'm just really bad at dates.

I can't remember what year but I remember there were Escaflowne RMs and I think maybe Wasabi ASFs too.

I remember posting AMPEG VCDs for a while, and sending in the control for abav and just kind of disappearing after that.

Oh, and I remember organising that brief stint with the fills server with oblio, BlueSeptember, JGB-9357, totsubo, and Or[Q]yman. But I don't think that panned out well (and made redundant by PARs later on).

I just lurk now.
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zanson



Joined: 08 Jan 2003
Posts: 41

PostPosted: Sun Aug 10, 2003 12:30 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yay for 1998 =) maybe even 97, I don't remember when during my first year of college I found the anime groups on my news server. But downloading to a 6gb drive is painfull even when its all rm's and small asf's.
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Onakra



Joined: 19 Feb 2002
Posts: 89
Location: Geldrop, Netherlands

PostPosted: Sun Aug 10, 2003 5:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

zanson wrote:
Yay for 1998 =) maybe even 97, I don't remember when during my first year of college I found the anime groups on my news server. But downloading to a 6gb drive is painfull even when its all rm's and small asf's.


ABA and ABMA didn't exist before the summer of 1999 (Aug/ Sept) AFAIK.
Maybe inc has some more detailed info when he gets back from his holiday.

The proposal in alt.config by Marco van Loon is dated Aug. 30th 1999:
ftp://ftp.isc.org/pub/usenet/control/alt/alt.binaries.multimedia.anime.gz

The rogue group ABA was created a little before that, but not more than a month or 2:
ftp://ftp.isc.org/pub/usenet/control/alt/alt.binaries.anime.gz
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Keikai



Joined: 18 Feb 2002
Posts: 178
Location: Miami, FL

PostPosted: Sun Aug 10, 2003 10:23 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I started AB(M)A lurking in July of 2000, it seems. I lurked for a month or so before starting to request fills when necessary, following the old usenet rule of not speaking in a group until you've read it for a month. Then I started doing designated fills poster work for a while and then a few posts of my own whenever I could find something not previously posted. The biggie, of course, for me, was my complete Dirty Pair VCD post & repost. That took a couple months. Of course, the hardest part wasn't the posting. I spent several dozens of hours across those months repairing those VCDs, many of which had become somewhat corrupted and some had been encoded improperly to begin with. It was probably silly, in retrospect, but I've always liked doing things "right". Still, it paled in comparison with effort's like inc's Kenshin project and some others. Unfortunately, it kindof burned me out and I have only done scattered posts since then. I felt I could contribute better by helping maintain the FAQ.

I have to thank Onakra for thinking of using Google Groups to seek out old posts by looking up my old nicks. What a laugh reading through some of them! I had never thought of doing that. My earliest post appearing there (back then on Dejanews) was in 7/1994 but that one was from my "summer" ISP. I couldnt find my posts from college which should have gone back to around 1992-3 as I dont think I had internet access when I started there in 1991. Of course all this was to the non-alt text groups. I didn't mess with binary groups until AB(M)A.

I think y'all will get a laugh from the first paragraph of my oldest appearing Google Groups listed post:
Quote:
I am attempting to run Linux using scsi.sz for the bootdisk and
color144.sz for the rootdisk on a 486DX/33 with 8 megs of ram and 2 hard drives. My intended plan is to keep drive one as a dos only drive. Drive two is my new Quantum 540 M hard drive. I plan to partition about
300 M of this for DOS use and the rest of it for Linux partitions...
The awesome system mentioned is currently being used as a table leg, I should be ashamed of myself.

Of course, before I got internet access around 1992, there were non-internet usenet equivalents. For years I used the RIME network which was a wonderful BBS-based newsgroup system. If a BBS you were a member of (in my case 'Ruby's BBS') subscribed to one of these networks, you could request the admin to add a particular group which meant he'd download all messages from that group and upload yours if you posted any. It was very much like usenet server admins do (or did, they are pretty indiscriminate these days).

Before AB(M)A my only anime exposure was "Saturday Anime" on, I think it was, the Sci-Fi channel. They were dubs, of course, of movies/OAVs like Iria, Venus Wars, etc. but I watched it every week (or taped it really, it was on Saturday mornings for some sadistic reason). (My hatred of Project A-ko, which seems to put me in a minority amongst classic anime fans, spawns from a dub that was on that show.) I didn't start enjoying subbed anime until AB(M)A. Obviously, I was never involved in the video-tape fansubbing scene.
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zanson



Joined: 08 Jan 2003
Posts: 41

PostPosted: Sun Aug 10, 2003 2:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Onakra wrote:

ABA and ABMA didn't exist before the summer of 1999 (Aug/ Sept) AFAIK.
Maybe inc has some more detailed info when he gets back from his holiday.

The proposal in alt.config by Marco van Loon is dated Aug. 30th 1999:
ftp://ftp.isc.org/pub/usenet/control/alt/alt.binaries.multimedia.anime.gz

The rogue group ABA was created a little before that, but not more than a month or 2:
ftp://ftp.isc.org/pub/usenet/control/alt/alt.binaries.anime.gz


Really? Checking some of my early anime cd's the files are all 2nd half of 98/early 99, though if the group didn't exist until 99, guess the 98s were web downloads, I had thought I got all my early stuff from ngs as I didn't find the anime channels on IRC until 2000.
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Keikai



Joined: 18 Feb 2002
Posts: 178
Location: Miami, FL

PostPosted: Sun Aug 10, 2003 3:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

zanson wrote:
Really? Checking some of my early anime cd's the files are all 2nd half of 98/early 99, though if the group didn't exist until 99, guess the 98s were web downloads, I had thought I got all my early stuff from ngs as I didn't find the anime channels on IRC until 2000.
Well when I checked the file dates on some of my files, some were from 1999 and 1998 even though I didnt start until summer of 2000. I suppose it's because RAR can maintain the original modified date of the file, and so can the burning app, so it usually matches when it was encoded not when it was downloaded or burned. So perhaps that's another possible reason for that phenomenon.
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LaughnCynic



Joined: 16 Jul 2002
Posts: 105

PostPosted: Tue Aug 12, 2003 2:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Welp, I'm a newbie.

Started in May of 2002 I think, when out of boredom I decided to go look for something to dl with my then cable connection which I hadn't really ever used to it's potential after 6-8 months of having it. I think I went to usenet looking for GitS or uncensored Bebop and Tenchi Muyo (running on that butcher network CN at the time). Found the anime groups and a small slice of heaven (or at least a taste of a different kind of time wasting sillyness). Wink

I never really posted more than some reposts/fills as I was paranoid about my cable co getting pissed at me (with all the cap'n horror stories I was hearing) for dl'n a gig a day+. I never had much luck getting on fserve/xdcc/ftp in subber's irc channels (I tried but many of them seemed to be +v/op only access and I didn't have the patience to sit around and become 'buddies' with suspicious subbers... my tolerance for public irc channel sillyness died years before I found anime). I did actually manage to get 1 as yet unposted file once which I promptly posted (R-B's WHR ep1 I think). Looking back now I should have really abused that cable connection much more than I did when I had it.

Now having moved and been 'demoted' to ISDN I struggle along trying to keep up till the day when the Internet Gods smile upon me and I get some bandwidth again.
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Melchior



Joined: 19 Feb 2002
Posts: 190
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada

PostPosted: Sun Aug 17, 2003 10:19 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Musicman introduced me to anime newsgroups around the end of 1999 or early 2000. Back then I used to pretty actively run an anime website with web downloads (should still be in my profile here, thoguh I haven't made any significant updates tot he site in ages)... My old site curerntly sits at about 440,000 visitors from 1999 through now! I'll probably break a half-million by the time next summer rolls aroudn!

Anyway... January through April 2000 I'd moved out of town to go work for a pulp mill halfway across the country, and I was stuck on dialup at the time. I tried to load up the headers from ABA, and tehy looked pretty nifty, but it took sooooooo long just to load headers, and I tried downloading a few RAR files, but it really wasn't worth it. I left newsgroups alone until about June/July of 2000, when I was back at home on a cable connection. Found the groups, decided they rocked, and I've been on usenet ever since!
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(inc)



Joined: 18 Feb 2002
Posts: 356
Location: San Diego

PostPosted: Thu Sep 04, 2003 8:37 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Onakra wrote:
ABA and ABMA didn't exist before the summer of 1999 (Aug/ Sept) AFAIK.
Maybe inc has some more detailed info when he gets back from his holiday.
Hehe... Back from both the holiday and then having to build/rearrange a computer or two. I've grown to dread the necessity of moving to a new box -- what a time-sink.

One thing not to overlook is the role of abm prior to the summer of '99. Anime did get posted there, though, if I recall, 90% of it was DBZ and Sailormoon (even when it had its own group). And I'll admit it was family requests (as I'd had a bit of experience in the binary groups) for those two series that lead me there, hence to discover that there were things in anime I might enjoy too. Razz

(inc)
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SD M



Joined: 17 Nov 2003
Posts: 13

PostPosted: Mon Nov 17, 2003 4:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

(inc) wrote:
Onakra wrote:
ABA and ABMA didn't exist before the summer of 1999 (Aug/ Sept) AFAIK.
Maybe inc has some more detailed info when he gets back from his holiday.
Hehe... Back from both the holiday and then having to build/rearrange a computer or two. I've grown to dread the necessity of moving to a new box -- what a time-sink.

One thing not to overlook is the role of abm prior to the summer of '99. Anime did get posted there, though, if I recall, 90% of it was DBZ and Sailormoon (even when it had its own group). And I'll admit it was family requests (as I'd had a bit of experience in the binary groups) for those two series that lead me there, hence to discover that there were things in anime I might enjoy too. Razz

(inc)


Hmm, I think that in 1994 I started reading rec.arts.anime
through its mailinglist gateway,
then IIRC in 1995 r.a.anime,
a.b.pictures.anime etc. through a normal newreader,
probably since 1998 reading a.b.sounds.anime (with about a 1-year gap in 2000),
posting some anime to a.b.multimedia back in the 1st half of 1999,
infrequently lurking in a.b.m.a since its birth.


SD M (shortening his usual nick to make these posts a tad more difficult to find if someone someday decides to Google together a profile on me...</paranoid>)
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deoch



Joined: 09 Mar 2002
Posts: 65

PostPosted: Mon Nov 17, 2003 10:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

My first file post was in 2001, so I think I probably started 2000/2001..
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