During a January blizzard thirty years ago in Chicago, Ward Christensen and Randy Seuss came up with the idea for a computerized bulletin board system. One month later on February 16, 1978, the first public online community was officially established, and it was named CBBS. [more inside]
posted by SteveInMaine on Feb 16, 2008 - 26 comments

Reassembled. Assembler is back -- at least, in its latest, frozen form. Score one for indie content makers. (thanks to Zeldman; his exit page notes the new URL.)
posted by moz on Jul 27, 2001 - 4 comments

We keep hearing about this "who owes what to whom" now that Assembler has closed, and Kaliber and Dreamless are closing.

But what of it? What does it mean? Are we so closed minded to think our Web world is the only one and that somehow the rest of the universe revolves around those of us privileged enough to be able to embark on it as a daily journey?

All of us feel one way or another towards this debate. Either we hate it, or love it, and what of that too? What *do* each of us want from this virtual world? Is there something here worth redeeming and at least arriving at a point to agree to disagree? Discuss?
posted by sixandone on Jul 14, 2001 - 10 comments

Disassembled. Assembler.org ("making art with machine code") is no more. Quoth the Zeldman: "Lately we feel like Smokey the Bear - and the forest fires are winning."
posted by fraying on Jul 6, 2001 - 74 comments

This DHTML site is just plain amazing. Hearing that the author wrote the whole thing by hand in a text editor with nothing but a book for reference is incredible. It reminds me of seeing an insane rug or quilt at a museum and hearing it was stiched by hand using only crude sewing tools. Just thinking of the work it took to make that site makes me want to cry in pain. [link pilfered from kottke]
posted by mathowie on Apr 6, 2000 - 21 comments