Damn! It's been 15 years!

[DannyCox]

I just realized that Carol and I have now been doing this for 15 years! WOW! The first website, Wild Rose Fireside Chat was started in late April, 1994. In 1995, we changed that to Wild Rose Amateur Home Page and then in 1996, we changed her name from Wild Rose to Carol Cox.

We started all this just for fun, and with no thought given to making money. Back in 1994, there was no commercialization of the Internet, and everyone was just fucking around. When Carol's site started to get bust, and bandwidth was actually costing us money, we started doing mail order video sales on her website. That took off, and we were mailing out 800 VHS tapes a week on average at the peak. We sold over 30,000 copies of her first video "Video Virgin". A friend of Evil Chris's owned a large video duplication facility here in Montreal, and they handled all the duplication for us.

We didn't start a paysite until January 1, 1997. I still have the notes I made about the profit we would realize by selling 10 memberships a day. On that first day, we had 222 sign-ups! By March of 1997, I quit my Engineering job at Bell Helicopters and went full on with our company

The Internet has been very good to us, and continues to be so. We have downsized since the peak days, and were actually back to just having fun and fucking around. We'll keep it up for a few more years yet, and I'll keep playing with all my sailing and travel sites.

There is no real point to this post, I'm just sitting here ruminating on the past. I should do a press release and send it off to AVN. Lately, they seem to make a big deal about people hitting their 10 year anniversaries! What Newbies!

[Evil Chris]

Time flies huh Dan? Those were really fun days back then. Kinda like driving with your eyes closed at certain points (without the danger).

Some of those moments feel like yesterday to me.

[EmporerEJ]

It's been 24 years for me.
Starting with the Video store chain in 1985, graduating to the BBS biz in 1992, and ultimately this new thing the "internet," in '94/95

[DannyCox]

I'm not talking about the prior BBS days, or anything else. Just the InterWebs

We had out first one-line, 2 hours a night, BBS back in 1985 when I was in my last year of university. Just a silly thing I ran off of Blue Board on my old Commodore 64. Moved it from there to an Amiga and then to an IBM-AT. It was because of the BBSes that we got onto the 'net so early.

[LAJ]

Congrats Danny... that rocks!

[EmporerEJ]

Originally Posted by DannyCox

I'm not talking about the prior BBS days, or anything else. Just the InterWebs

We had out first one-line, 2 hours a night, BBS back in 1985 when I was in my last year of university. Just a silly thing I ran off of Blue Board on my old Commodore 64. Moved it from there to an Amiga and then to an IBM-AT. It was because of the BBSes that we got onto the 'net so early.

Oh, the days of the one line /modem and the speakeasy relay network. I used Renegade software.
When I Set up my first server for the Internet, I used 2 phone lines, with 2 28.8 modems, and served my website from my very own Pentium 75. (Or was it still a 386? can't remember)
I used SLMail, and fought NOT to be a relay station.

A friend of mine set up as a local ISP. They bought a T-1 line, (Which was HUGE back then, and had 40 modems lined up on metal shelf brackets you buy in the hardware store.

Wild days.

[DannyCox]

When I moved to Montreal in early 1993, there were already a number of large BBSes around, so I never bothered with my own BBS again. I got hooked up with a very large Adult BBS here in town (where I met Evil Chris) and ended up helping out as a SysOp on it. The whole thing was on a 512Kb ISDN line and at the peak had 88 56K modems hooked up! It was all set-up in the owners spare bedroom, the size of a large closet.

On Carol's website in 95/96, we used to have people Telnet into the BBS to see more of her pictures and chat with her. Of course, for that, they had to pay! We brought international subscribers to a local BBS

[EmporerEJ]

See?
Once again...the story here is....

The people of the adult industry built the web.
The adult industry was the first to adopt the technology in a commercial manner, monetize it, and make it a place people were willing to spend for.
Without the adult industry, the web would never have developed as fast as, or indeed maybe at all.

They should give credit, where credit is due.

[softball]

I have been around so long, my first calculator was an abacus until I got an led watch. I shot my first porn film in 1983 and we uploaded it to customers using S.T.O.R.E. technology which was cutting edge back then. It was viewed on VHS which was faster than a WMV. It was DRM'd to people would return it three days later and we would upsell them on REWIND charges. I know to you young fellows, this space age technology seems old, but it was effective and the c/b ratio was nil.

[softball]

Oh yeah, and Danny congrats on spending half your life on the internet....

[gonzo]

Originally Posted by EmporerEJ

Oh, the days of the one line /modem and the speakeasy relay network. I used Renegade software.
When I Set up my first server for the Internet, I used 2 phone lines, with 2 28.8 modems, and served my website from my very own Pentium 75. (Or was it still a 386? can't remember)
I used SLMail, and fought NOT to be a relay station.

A friend of mine set up as a local ISP. They bought a T-1 line, (Which was HUGE back then, and had 40 modems lined up on metal shelf brackets you buy in the hardware store.

Wild days.

Wildcat sux.

[softball]

The thing I have realized over the years is that "when we" stories have a shelf life. Most, including mine, have passed their sell by date.

[RawAlex]

Danny, congrats on 15 years. For those of us who have been in this a long, long time, we will remember things like acoustic couplers, 110 baud, and in the case of Montreal, the very first BBS in Canada (and only the second or third in north america) called MicroDial, which was based in a computer store in Decarie Square. 300 baud (high speed!), but because of the old phone system, if someone forgot to hang up their connection (many modems were push the button to connect, push to disconnect with no speaker to hear), people could stay connected for hours with no way for the BBS to flush the line, even if it hung up.

Downloading JPGs at slow enough speeds that you might only get one small image per session online.

[MRock]

Congrats Danny! You guys are definately in the books as internet fore-runners and here's to 15 more years.

When I bought my first "media" computer in '97, the saleskid showed us the Carol Cox site as an example for what we told him we were looking to do. He also introduced us to Khy and his crew at a local barmeet and away we went into the interwebs ...

PS. I like to hear these stories of the old technology from you guys. I switched from a 56k modem for personal access to T-1 line to serve our first website. I missed all of the other stuff ...

[Gerco]

Originally Posted by gonzo

Wildcat sux.

I had a wildcat bbs...

yes... it sucked....

Grats on 15 years. I just hit the 10 mark. Funny to think back on it... just plying around we created a little group out there, ended up with over 150k in members to that group in a week. So, did a little adult check site... I remember cause we had a little emachine at the time and every time someone would join, it and send us the email about it it would chime. Then of course we took it a step further with EH.

32 when I started 42 today..

[Kacy]

Congrats Danny! Hope Carol and family are doing great

We are celebrating our 10 year next month! It's crazy how time flies eh?

[Sharpie]

Hi Danny, Alex and all......

Was a little bored today and thought I would tune into what is going on. Retirement was pretty nice, until My IRA's went to hell:-}

Believe it or not - I have a part time job at Sears. I am trying very hard to be a good 'little peon. But, all the waste drives me nuts! They now have 'discovered that I come with a year or two of experience - so my part time job has been turning into 38 hrs a week lately. They just pretty much turn me loose with a list of assignments of things that have needed done for a few years, and stay out of my hair. Actually, it is kind of fun:-)

I have framed my first check - It has been since 1972, that anyone has written me check besides myself.

Anyway, hope everyone is doing fine! I love living in Paradise! (Naples Fla - for those who don't know)

[gonzo]

Originally Posted by Sharpie

Hi Danny, Alex and all......

Was a little bored today and thought I would tune into what is going on. Retirement was pretty nice, until My IRA's went to hell:-}

Believe it or not - I have a part time job at Sears. I am trying very hard to be a good 'little peon. But, all the waste drives me nuts! They now have 'discovered that I come with a year or two of experience - so my part time job has been turning into 38 hrs a week lately. They just pretty much turn me loose with a list of assignments of things that have needed done for a few years, and stay out of my hair. Actually, it is kind of fun:-)

I have framed my first check - It has been since 1972, that anyone has written me check besides myself.

Anyway, hope everyone is doing fine! I love living in Paradise! (Naples Fla - for those who don't know)

Glad to hear your doing well.

[Evil Chris]

Nice to hear from you Sharpie, and also that you're enjoying life.

[RawAlex]

Sharpie, great to hear you are doing well. Sears is lucky to have someone like you working for them, that is for sure!

[CharlieBrown]

10 years for me :>

[gonzo]

Registered my first in 93 but was passing messages using a uucp alias along a bangpath 2 years prior.