I remember seeing "Journaling" in old InterBase manuals (3.3)
but I've never used it. Today I've tried to find out how
to set it up in the 6.0 beta, and to my surprise, I couldn't
find it anywhere in the documentation. I've gone back to
version 4.0 and it looks like journaling was already
removed (for example "enable" keyword not in gfix).

Is there any history behind it? Are there any plans to
resurrect journaling?

IMHO, journaling is essential for 7x24 applications
where up to the minute recovery is a must.

Is there an alternative mechanism that I'm not seeing?

Bye,
Jerzy