Chop saw

Write another post and start another thread about the same subject?

Sorry, I did not think my origional post took.

Usenet Newsgroups isn't like Instant Messaging.

You are reading from Google Groups, which is a bastardized Web front-end (that started out as DejaNews, an archiving service) to a Text-based store-and-forward message system that has existed almost since the very beginnings of ARPA-net (1978-ish IIRC)

This dates to long before the public World Wide Intertubes, where now they'll just let anyone with subscription money in... ;-)

Most of us are reading with dedicated software, and sending and receiving posts in batches from dedicated servers at our ISP's - the only thing that has changed is the messages move a lot faster, at Millions of bits per second rather than 110 bits per second - slow enough that a mechanical typewriter-based printer mechanism could output text without jamming...

Once upon a time when there was no DSL and you paid for all data calls by the minute, you initiated a modem session, did a send and receive batch run, then hung up and read and responded to all the messages offline. Then you made another modem call to send off todays responses, or they just waited till tomorrow to go out.

Your original post has to get passed server to server up the chain and out to the readers, and in the old days that meant more dial-up modem calls, these ones long distance and only a few times a day. Now we have always-on connections and the messages you post can move 'lightning fast!' and only take hours to propagate to everyone. (Usually an hour or two to go worldwide, but that depends a LOT on traffic levels.) Then they read and respond, and it can take a few more hours for the response to get back to your server.

Click the "Show All Headers" on your newsreader, then look at the Path: header. Shows all the hand-offs between news servers, colon separated.

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