How do I find my NNTP server name so that I can use XannaNews?

[JohnLM 14]

Hi, I am trying to find my (NNTP) server name so that I use setup and use with XanaNews.  My provider is Optimum Internet here in the States. 

 

It has been years since I used a newsreader.  My last reader was with Netscape in Windows 98.  It was pretty easy to use back then.

 

When you phone Optimum they mainly have automated choices, so that is not an option. 

 

I've tried CMD and entered "hostname" but that gives me my computer name. 

Also tried ipconfig /all but that returns a bunch of details that I do not understand. 

 

Is there another way to obtain it through software or else the internet?  TIA. 

[Brian Evans 105]

Most internet service providers stopped providing Usenet servers for customer use over a decade ago. You need to find and use a public Usenet server (usually limited to text newsgroups) or pay for access to one. 

[JohnLM 14]

I did not know that.  

 

I had downloaded an old Delphi project and was reading the readme.txt it came with and saw a link to the usernet newsgroup

"https://groups.google.com/g/comp.lang.pascal.delphi.misc" 

 

The topic of the post in the newgroup was from Tim Robert's, from April 17, 1997, related to an Delphi project by efg (Early F. Glynn) and I was trying to see what he wrote about. 

 

When I entered that address in Chrome, I could only scroll via "<" and ">" icons and it took me about 4 hours to get to the date range of 4/1997, but I did not find the April 17, 1997 post mentioned in the readme.txt file.  And, after retiring for the day, I left the tab open there and shut down the laptop in sleep mode, and the next day, the date had gone back up to 2023. 

 

Although I was looking in the newsgroup for that particular topic, I want to continue searching other newsgroup topics, so I would like a newsreader that works. Many topics will probably be from the days of old, for stuff you can't find on the internet anymore these days because those sites closed down for instance. 

 

[Brian Evans 105]

Just looked for public/free servers and could not find any. Only paid access mostly targeted at those who want access to binary groups. 

 

The Internet Archive does have some collections of Usenet traffic. So far only see one for comp.lang.pascal.delphi.misc and it looks to only go as far back to mid 1997 as well. In mbox format presented as a zip file containing one large text file. 

 usenet-comp directory listing (archive.org)

[Angus Robertson 574]

I use been using the same two news readers for 25 years, Forte Agent and Ameol2 (very specialised for the UK).  

 

I read a number of uk news groups.  But there are no active Delphi groups, since Embarcadero moved away from a web forum that allowed NNTP access.

I have an account with https://www.astraweb.com/ they sell fixed usage so 25GB for $10 that will last for ever if you don't download binaries. 

 

One free news server is news.gmane.io that holds several mailing lists, I read OpenSSL mailing lists via it. 

 

Angus