sf > wrote:

>Hmmm. That's a possibility... but I'm unclear how usenet
>(rec.food.cooking in particular) could have been an integral
>part of the internet (ARPA or ARPANET) before 1981. In
>those days, REC meant "Request For Comments", so
>Rec.Food.Cooking might have been on a bulletin board or
>maybe two.

In those days, news propogated by UUCP (unix-to-unix copy
protocol) rather than NNTP (netnews transfer protocol),
and usually went over phonelines rather than the main
ARPANET trunks. Email was often handled this way as well.
I would say it was not until the mid-80's that there was
enough excess bandwidth on the ARPANET that people felt
it was reasonable to send news over it.

I do not recall if there was a "net.cooking" group back
before the great divide, maybe someone here can remember.

Steve