Questions about the history of DIS boards!

[tidoublegger]

Hi~ I've been a member for about a year and a half and was wondering...who started the boards and when and...holy cow...how big is the server to accomodate all of the posts?!?!? Do you ever purge old posts?

I enjoy reading and posting on the boards and am curious as to whom I should thank for starting it all!

 

[vettechick99]

interesting question, I'd like to know too!

 

[Bob Slydell]

Pete Warner's the founder (and owner) of the DIS. I can't remember the exact date it started, but I think it was in '96 or '97 as one or two message boards and a couple pages of WDW info.

The technical stuff, someone like WebmasterAlex can probably answer.

 

[Barb D]

Pete Werner started the boards in June, 1997. Here's a link to a little bit of DIS history courtesy of the Way Back Machine:

http://web.archive.org/web/19981205211927/www.disneyinfo.com/disintro.htm

Edited to add: The web site I linked is an image of the DIS from 1998. It's what we USED to see.

Here are some more OLD DIS pages: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://disneyinfo.com

 

[snoopy]

The DIS Boards were started by Pete Werner, who is the owner of both the DIS Boards and Dreams Unlimited, the travel agency affiliated with the boards.

Pete started it in 1997, I believe. At that time he lived in New Jersey and just had an avid interest in WDW. Pretty soon thereafter it took off from one board to multiple boards, and shortly thereafter DU was launched. Pete makes rare appearances on the boards nowdays, but there was a time where he would do weekly commentaries on his observations of the World. I'd like for him one day to get back to that, it added a nice personal touch.

 

[Kallison]

I found these boards late in '97, when they were only one board, and you were only allowed to talk about Disney. We were always getting "yelled" at to stay on topic. So people would post a Disney question and be like - PS: How is your new house shopping going? or something like that. You were able to talk to Pete quite frequently back then.

 

[Dan Murphy]

That is a great site, Barb, what wonderful memories!!! Some of that goes back to before we had to register. Very cool.

 

[helenk]

I started posting in 1999 and Pete was always posting back in those days. There were just a couple of boards, but you really got a lot of information.
It is amazing to have seen the changes over the years.

 

[snoopy]

Hey Barb, wow, how did you do that????

What a blast from the past. I remember ALL of those different formats!

 

[Dan Murphy]

Barb, you just gave me something to do when I run out of current DIS stuff to read, LOL. What a treasure!!!!

 

[WebmasterMaryJo]

<font color=navy>Ahhh, so much fun to look at those again.

I remember the Trivia Board fondly, when SeanO & Adam used to post trivia questions.... I'd spend hours looking up info, trying to beat Baloo and JeffinBigD so CathyCanada could tally me & get those cyber twinkies for humoring her son Patrick. Fun times.

 

[Towncrier]

There was a big "crash" of the boards several years ago and all of the posts prior to that crash were lost forever. Or so we hope.

 

[Keli]

Remember when we had to click on each reply in order to read them? That's the thing I remember the most about the first board, it would take forever to read the OP and then all the replies to it, lol.

 

[Dan Murphy]

That is like here, Keli.

http://web.archive.org/web/19990202155543/www.disneyinfo.com/otherboard/otherboard.shtml

 

[Tess]

Does that bring back memories.

I'm a vet from 1997 as well--I believe it was around August of that year that I became addicted to reading and posting. What a find BarbD! All those lost posts in the first big crash!

 

[Barb D]

Originally posted by snoopy
Hey Barb, wow, how did you do that????

What a blast from the past. I remember ALL of those different formats!

The Way Back Machine has archived copies of LOTS (they say 30 BILLION) of old web pages, not just the DIS. If you're on other discussion boards, you may be able to find old versions of them, too.

Here's a link to the main page: http://web.archive.org

Have fun!

 

[Timon]

Dan,

Thanks for posting that link! I remember pouring over all those threads just to soak up as much info as I could! Other than Lampwick's site, there wasn't much Disney info on the net back then so I visited the DIS daily! I was so happy to find all that Disney info!!!

My how it's grown!!!

 

[Planogirl]

Wow, I see the Inspiration Board too. I used to spend a lot of time on that board!

 

[mtemm]

I first came here in august of 1998 in spite of what my tag says. hey, crashes happen, or happened. I was addicted immediately and dh and I ended up at wdw 2 months later for our 1st anniversary.

definitely very different back then, but still a great place to go

 

[Annette_VA]

Well, how cool is that!?

You learn something new every day. I never knew that DIS was Disney Information System!