Nice new Laser for Christmas

Originally posted by JimC Originally posted by Null The Internet forums did no damage with the eps vs 300 as frankly I. 1998 they simply did not exisist  Umm, no. Plenty of discussion on line back then, typically on usenet (rec.boats.racing was the normal venue) or on BBS type systems like Compuserve or CIX. I don't recall *any* significant 300 vs EPS flamewarring on line back then, perhaps we were all too busy ganging up on the 5 Tonner fan [grin]

Blimey Jim, you must have had all the toys!

I was in yr2 of my degree when the EPS and 300 were launched, and the only accessible internet was in University libraries. Internet access from home was still largely confined to those whos employers provided them with a dial-up router.

As a Laser sailor at the time I was extremely interested in both boats and remember having pictures of both on my wall as inspiration to get a good job when I left Uni such that I could buy one.
One of my mates who was in our Uni Sailing Team with me, was a rather good Laser sailor in the crowd with Ben, Hugh Styles etc. and as a consequence was able to borrow boats for the inaugural nationals of both the EPS and RS300. The only discussions that I was aware of at the time were general chats with people like him who had sailed both. I dont recall any real battle emerging and it never really felt like people were heavily defending either.
I do however remember that the Laser sailor in question firmly believed that the 300 was too extreme and that the EPS would be a better progression for your typical Laser sailor.
Both boats had issues at the start, I think that is fair to say but ultimately RS were able to sort more of theirs and hence make the 300 a more sellable boat.

As a result when I left University my first pay check was all lined up for a 300 but then I foolishly had a go in a 600 and hung up my hikers!!!

We certainly live in a changed world now, and I'd hate to be a marketing man in the current climate where every man, woman, child can give their views founded or not, without having a physical face to respond to. It also makes it very difficult to convince potential buyers to ignore the cr*p and focus only on the genuine users reviews.

Back in the days of 56k dial-up .... I seem to recall never ending emails with filth attached to it, forwarded and resent in permanent loop, usually originating from a soton.ac.uk domain name.   It was boring after the second visit to the library computer (singular) to check mail, and the tutting was understandable as the porn was preventing someone getting on JANET... Whoever the hell she was, but she seemed to be putting it about a bit.

The vaginas even had hair on them in those days, but only if you could be arsed to wait for the download as some grainy bitmap pixelated top to bottom.

You mean people talked sh*t about boats back then too? Well I never.... I could have found a use for my uni Internet account after all.

Edited by kneewrecker - 04 Dec 14 at 12:09am

Originally posted by craiggo Blimey Jim, you must have had all the toys!

I think it was the 92 Americas cup that got me excited about the possibilities of the net, you guys have no idea how radical it was to be able to get mark roundings in near real time on a text only browser. Might have been 95. Certainly in mid 95 I produced the first Cherub Web site, which fortunately seems to precede archive.org so none of you can look at how awful it was...
I think it was 1997 that Ilovewight and I stated my Plusplus project, which was almost all done by email including the design offsets transferred electronically. I suppose a number of you weren't born then.
9600 modem was the slowest I ever had. Fine for email.

In your day Clive, you dreamed of something as fast as the royal mail 2nd class service.

Oh and the internet? We first heard about the 'World Wide Web' in 93 with a demonstration by Mistral who were showcasing it as a potential brochure free future. I also recall doing a dealer introduction to websites with the assistance of Bill Dawes of Boards Mag up at Grafham around 94-5, email via compuserve or aol had been around almost as long as i can recall having a laptop and spreadsheets, late eighties would it have been?

I hate to think of the thousands I've wasted in internet costs, not to mention the man hours lost to this sort of bulletin board bollox, it's an illness, there is no cure.

Edited by iGRF - 04 Dec 14 at 9:21am