How the gateway worked (historical)

The original service was plain: each directory page carried a form; you entered an e-mail address; the gateway subscribed you to that newsgroup and forwarded its articles as mail. Unsubscribing worked the same way in reverse.

None of this operates any more. The forms are gone and no address entered anywhere on this site does anything. If you want a similar experience today, modern options exist: Google Groups can e-mail some archived groups, and any IMAP-capable newsreader against a live NNTP server gives a comparable workflow — see accessing Usenet today.