Re: Upgrading the news URL

[Andrew Pam <xanni@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dan Fabulich wrote:
> It would work as a Broadcast Automated Request.  Basically, a user
> interested in a given article could request it over Usenet in a
> specifically designed newsgroup ...
> ---
> Newsgroups: comp.hypertext.requests
> From: dfab@xxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Request: 5ferud$241vg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> ---
> ... and the server, which may house only one or two articles or may be
> an archive of thousands, would monitor these subject headers to check
> for requests for an article on file.  If the server program owned this
> article, it could initiate a connection with the requester to transmit
> the article.

Given the Usenet propagation delays, this might mean that it could take
up to a few days to receive a requested article.  This would make this
system unworkable for interactive browsing.  You might need to add a
separate server daemon to respond immediately to requests for articles.
You would also need to provide some mechanism for broadcasting or
multicasting the requests which does not waste too much bandwidth.

> A library like this could maintain far more than any managed library
> ever could.  The magic of this system is that if ANYBODY wanted to
> archive a given file, if just one person thinks an article is important
> or interesting, it would be available for anyone, anytime, anywhere.

This has always been one of the Xanadu goals.

Share and enjoy,
		*** Xanni ***
-- 
mailto:xanni@xxxxxxxxxx                         Andrew Pam
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