Here's my announcement post, which is, I hope, worth reading for some context of what's going on in 1981 "now":

http://kitenet.net/~joey/blog/entry/announcing_olduse.net/

Also, if you see a blank box where the newsreader should be, yeah, inviting the whole web in to run tin on my server is not a completely scalable thing. nntp.olduse.net is where it's at.