hope this helps
Sellars,
I don't have any links handy, but I remember reading a general FAQ on DnD on the usenet message boards that covered the history of the game. If I am not mistaken, GOOGLE has archived the entire usenet boards. Look around on GOOGLE for a subsite, and then go in and do a search for Dungeons and Dragons, looking for alt.????.frp.dnd or something like that. Hope that helps.
Mac Golden