Tell Me Tales of MURC, Please

[chaoliang]

Hi,
since I find rarely anything new through the Crystal Ball and in digging the Matrox Hardware, I "happen to" begin to browse into the MURC Life. I joined the Community in Feb. last year, when many things were so exciting and hot. So I didn't pay enough attention to the Forum itsself. It's winter now in many sense , so it might be a good time to shut the winter(s) outside the door, and to sit down in front of the fire, hearing some wonderful tales of the old days. (I hope it also warmes up ZokesPro a bit, at least his heart )

I would like to ask our people in the Forum to tell some stories about the forum, if they find them interesting. It can be something about its history, or about the respectable veterans here, or some stories about the members, or some legends and so on.

Just to get a start, I have a few questions:
1. If I didn't take wrong, the forum was founded on Jan. 3. 1997 by Ant. But until Aug. 1999 there were no activities in the Forum. What happened?
2. "Satan" was registed on Jan. 1. 1970 (!), is it true?
3. There are 10443 registed names, how many of them are still with us?

Hope to hear from you!
Chaoliang

[Sasq]

1) The great DB crash of '99
2) Satan registered at the begining of time its just that Jan 1 1970 is the begining of unix time.
3) Dunno

Dan

[Dilitante1]

1) I remember that as I lost my first nick to it hence the "1"

2) Hot little guy eh?

3)Most of them I hope but there are a few (at least) that have more than nick here

[Taz]

Originally posted by Sasq
...its just that Jan 1 1970 is the begining of unix time.

And my time on this planet

[Ovi]

Another thing about Satan: his post count always stays at 666!!
Intriguing, isn't it?

Cheers
Ovi

[Jessterw]

Well there was this one time that Gur... err, nevermind.

[chaoliang]

Who is this mysterious person? Is he someone special? Because he is allowed to edit some data: He must be here just now, and decided to join us in 666 A.D.

[chaoliang]

Originally posted by Sasq
1) The great DB crash of '99
[...]
Dan

Can anyone tell some more about this crash?

[Rags]

Items of note:

1. The great Tylau conflict

2. The great Powerstrip bios munching controversy.

3. Various other interesting people: djroberts, Tombman, etc.

Rags

[Dilitante1]

Can anyone tell some more about this crash?

well iirc we had a major dump while hosted by an earlier provider that effected some user accounts

we also survived attacks by an upset kiddie that flooded the forums with duplicate posts, but some members had issues with thier account after that as well

[Kruzin]

There was a couple of post count resets.
The first was when Ant switched forum software, the second was the great DB crash.

The forums where originally run by Flangor Strongaxe on M-Factor, a hardware news site (with a Matrox emphasis) hosted by MURC. When Flangor and Ant parted ways, M-Factor ceased to exist, and Ant took over the forums. This was in the M3D-G200 days.
Back then, the attitude in the forums was somewhat more...ummm...abrasive. Many, many, many hardcore flame wars, with me torching with the loudest of them, quickly burning up any troll who came along to diss our G200s.
There where not as many forums, different mods, and no BBz. The MURC main page looked completely different (as did the forums).

Then came the MURC:TNG. Ant was doing all the news, modding, and everything else. He started putting regular users into the rolls of moderators (most of the first batch didn't last long...mooooo), added more forums, and eventually grew into what we are today.

[Jessterw]

Also let's not forget our most set of related recent fiascos that kept one hairy mod (sorry, code administrator) awake for more than 24 hrs.

[Kruzin]

"recent events" dont hold a candle to what used to go on around here

[Jessterw]

/me knocks on wood for Kruzin


Yeah I wasn't around for all that fun, but I've seen enough at some other forums to make me glad I didn't have to see another.

[Pace]

Take it we moved to GA/EU during the G200 days? That's when I first used MURC, although I might've viewed the main page before that, but I don't recall the M-Factor days at all.

I've saw some of Tylau's work though, but wasn't interested in the forums then - I have been here pretty regular since I signed up though, much to everyone's dismay