Nice new Laser for Christmas

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.

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 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.

Ha ha, I rememebr compuserve as a brand name but what was it Jim? I have got to be honest back in 96-99 I was sailing lasers and finding my way with beer and women but I was aware of the eps and obviously the 300.  But actually the eps more.  I never recalled any kind of battle between the classes either.  I think everyone was too busy concentrating on the laser topper skiff range to notice.  I didn't even really consider them direct competitors.   All I knew of the 300 was that it looked cool and was a modern laser.  I'm sure I read that in y&y as well to be honest.  

Matt I am not suprised.  Actually I welcome you challenging me!  just not in a personal attack, which regardless if you like it or not your writing style and red text is and has been take that way.   I want to have debate.  It's healthy and what makes forums great.  But I am mid 30's and you are older.  School boy bullying ain't going to work pal.