In article ,
Bernard Peek wrote:

In case anyone knows an answer, do any of them provide archives
and a reasonable search mechanism?

I don't know of any that provide archives as such but I understand that
some commercial services have very long retention times which might do
what you want.

Thanks, but that's NOT what I want. I am far more interested in
being able to look up postings of the 1980s. Even Goggle Gropes
doesn't go back before 1981, though :-(

Well you could try nntp.oldnews.net if you have enough patience. It's
releasing Darpanet posts day-by-day. It's quite possible that someone
somewhere, probably a university, has kept their archives but I don't
know of any that are accessible to the public. If you can tell them
precisely what you are looking for your local library may have access to
academic sources that can't be reached in any other way,

Thanks very much. It's actually nntp.olduse.net.

I am pretty certain that no university has kept archives, because
quite a lot of us tried to interest TPTB in such things, but the
attitude was "Who gives a damn about the weebling of geeks?
Anyway, computing isn't interesting enough to be worth keeping
detailed records of." Seriously :-(


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.