The Cellar
 

Is what exactly? Just a message board somebody decided to start? Most online communities seem to be focused, ostensibly at least, on some central thing--rock star, genre of literature, business, religious faith, whatever. What's the origin of this place? I'm just here because I stumbled across this website while doing research for something and decided to sign up just for the heck of it. Anyway . . . thanks in advance.

We try to focus exclusively on arts and crafts made out of tape, but there's always some thread drift.

yeah, tape projects are really the center of it all, but some people keep dragging woodworking into the equation like that matters at all.

Well there used to be a history page linked from the bottom... here it is

350 posts per week!

oh crap, there are some of us that do that by ourselves, now.

that is interesting UT, i'd never stumbled across the history before. you should update it. right after you bring the webcam system with the 3 monkeys online for me, that is.

THE Dinty Moore, of canned beef stew fame? Uh-huh. Cool.

Btw, I enjoyed very much the history lesson, thank you. I have lurked through much of the archives. Well, much for me, since I have no idea what percentage of what's available I've covered. I did go through and from the beginning of the IotD thread. Some very cool pics, and some very interesting discussions. I did get a sense of history briefly coming to life, in the same way that it did when we rode on "America Sings" in Disneyland. As the dioramas scrolled by and the AudioAnimatronic Abraham Lincoln stood up and gave his speech, I felt the people in the cellar (and ol' Abe) were speaking in the room, if not directly at me.

I don't know how accurately this represents the actual history of the time, but I have less reason to distrust this account than I do of many news accounts of "great events" of the day. Very real, personal.

I quite enjoyed it, UT, thanks. I expect to enjoy more in the future.

Oh poppycock, the Cellar is really here to worship the greatest bassman of all time. A living legend in the annals of music. Think of Emplive in Seattle , but devoted to one musician. :biggrin:

oh.. is that what it is for? hmmm here I was looking for a duct tape forum.. my bad

I dunno I like this place although in most cases I just lurk or offer useless information that someone else could say more better :) but I will have to read the history part... hmmm... interesting Dr. Watson

Ron Carter is here?

J.K. :lol:

Thanks for the responses, all.

Those mid-1990 times were rather precarious - especially when a little 'trick' was required to maintain a local Philly area number in the King of Prussia exchange. Back in the days when 'distance had not yet died' in the phone industry. UT, did you think the Cellar was going to survive when you abandoned the Usenet and almost lost that local access? How close did you come to pulling the plug?

In those near disastrous times, susanc (also a masseuse for Corvettes) was a life saver.

I have no idea WTF you just said, Tee.

he's drunk?

It all makes perfect sense.

I guess you hadda be there.

I had forgotten about all of that. I remember the KAOS/Cellar GTG at Reading Terminal. Someone even gave me a KAOs poster with the patented 'shithammer'.

I remember bringing Marci and the kids to the BBQ. It was a little odd, but everyone had fun.

I'm still finding floppy disks from our dialup days. I forgot when I first joined, and I did not get in as much during the telnet days.

It's been a fun decade.

When the system was dialup only, for a while it lived at SusanC's house. I moved into where I live now with the intent of moving the Cellar in once I was set up. But little did I know that my house was outside the "philadelphia metro calling region" - a zone where people could, roughly, call without toll charges.

I called Bell and worked with them to set up call forwarding from Susan's house to mine, for 7 lines. They weren't supposed to forward multiple lines in a hunt sequence (where a busy signal routes the caller to the "next" phone line), but I talked the guy into doing it even though technically it was a hack and only semi-legal. That way, people could call Susan's house, inside the toll region, and it would forward to the Cellar, 3 miles away. I had to pay for 7 phone lines at both locations and permanent call forwarding.

We actually had to "busy out" the lines at Susan's house to get it to work - make it look like the lines were in use. To accomplish this, we permanently shorted them out by twisting the ends of bare telephone wire, and plugging them into the phone sockets.

I wrote the Bell service center a long letter telling them how great their service guy was to work with me to set the whole thing up. Six months later I called him back with a question... he had been promoted. :D

I only connected via telnet once or twice. I'm not sure why... that kind of thing should have been right up my alley.