[Roadsters] Birthday

[Mark J Bradakis]

April 11th.  As many of you know, the domain team.net was officially 
registered on April 11, 1991, by the late Bill Caloccia.  I have been 
managing the mailing lists on autox.team.net since then, actually for a 
while before that.  I took over  from Jim Muller, who took over from 
Dale Cook, and I wish I had archives of those first few years.  Actually 
I may have some in my office, on 1/4 inch tape cassettes.  Every now and 
then I consider trying to revive some of the old HP-UX boxes I have to 
see if I can still read any of those tapes.  Maybe someday.

Anyway, in the beginning I was routing everything through the servers at 
the University of Utah Computer Science Department, where I was 
employed.  When my fellow sys admins started noticing just how much 
network traffic there was on a certain box, my boss strongly suggested I 
make other arrangements.  So I went about getting a network connection 
at home.  Back then, it was not that easy, or cheap.  And as I recall, 
the first dedicated Team Net server was an HP box with one of the first 
100+ megahertz CPUs, and even with a deal through HP, who worked closely 
with the U in those days the system set me back about $2,500.  Hardware 
has improved since then.  And that money didn't all come out of my 
pocket, I initiated a fund drive among the list members and got a great 
response.  Back then it was all checks in the mail, and I mailed a thank 
you postcard to every contributor, or at least most of them, no doubt I 
missed a few.  And for some time there was an annual fund drive to cover 
the rather high cost of having sufficient bandwidth from my house.

So here it is 29 and just everybody has fast network available to 
them.   I dropped the fund drives some years back, though folks do 
continue to contribute to the cause.  Now a few clicks in Paypal can 
take care of it, though some still prefer to send checks. Yep, things 
are different now.  And with the Covid-19 pandemic, a LOT different.  
But the Team Net mailing lists are still chugging along, providing those 
spending more time at home a bit of distraction, entertainment or 
education as we keep our beloved vehicles rolling along the roads.

I plan to keep it going as long as I can, who knows how many years I 
have left.  April 11th is also my birthday, 66 this year, and I 
certainly won't live forever.  And I fear that when I die, Team Net will 
die.  Sigh.

But for now, enjoy and stay healthy.

mjb.