# What was the first Post here / Oldest Poster?



## Jotel me this (Nov 24, 2018)

Theres so much information on this site its amazing.
I noticed several of you have been posting since 2008.
I was wondering who here has been around the longest and what was the actual very first question asked on hearth.com


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## firefighterjake (Nov 24, 2018)

Hearth.com is actually much older than 2008 . . . it has gone through a few changes over the years.


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## EatenByLimestone (Nov 24, 2018)

I think Craig was probably the first guy, considering he owns the place.  His first post probably said:

Test




Lol.


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## Hogwildz (Nov 24, 2018)

Craig sold it a few years back, webfish is now the owner.


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## EatenByLimestone (Nov 25, 2018)

Huh.  Didn't know that!


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## begreen (Nov 25, 2018)

BrotherBart, Elkimeg, MoHeat, Corie, rudismallfry, myself and a few others migrated from the Hearth.com BBS to the forum back in November 2005.


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## Jotel me this (Nov 25, 2018)

begreen said:


> BrotherBart, Elkimeg, MoHeat, Corie, rudismallfry, myself and a few others migrated from the Hearth.com BBS to the forum back in November 2005.



2005. nice!


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## Easy Livin’ 3000 (Nov 26, 2018)

begreen said:


> BrotherBart, Elkimeg, MoHeat, Corie, rudismallfry, myself and a few others migrated from the Hearth.com BBS to the forum back in November 2005.


Any idea how far back the bulletin board system version went back?


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## Highbeam (Nov 26, 2018)

Posting to see my "join" date only. I remember elk though and pook.


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## firefighterjake (Nov 26, 2018)

Highbeam said:


> Posting to see my "join" date only. I remember elk though and pook.



Oh . . . Pook . . . that guy's post reminds me of another poster here. Half the time I couldn't figure out what he was trying to say . . . the other half of the time I just kept hoping that folks wouldn't think everyone from Maine was like him.


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## EatenByLimestone (Nov 26, 2018)

Pook and the sedore stove!  Lol.

I also remember Dylan.  I think he only burnt cardboard in an old VC stove that was falling apart.


Anybody remember burning issues?


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## fbelec (Nov 28, 2018)

been here a while but don't know what happened to mo heat. went to school on his posts for the winter warm


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## My_3_Girls (Nov 28, 2018)

EatenByLimestone said:


> Pook and the sedore stove!  Lol.
> 
> I also remember Dylan.  I think he only burnt cardboard in an old VC stove that was falling apart.
> 
> ...



If I remember correctly, Dylan got a job as a designer/engineer at a stove manufacturer.  Also, Mike someone from Long Island, NY - he's the reason I bought my Jotul Kennebec - had all the tips and tricks.  And Eric something from near Utica, NY had 20 years of wood already stacked.  Ah, the good, old days.


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## begreen (Nov 28, 2018)

Are you thinking of Corie? He went on to work for Englander and designed the 17-VL. 

Eric Johnson was a super person and a moderator here and is greatly missed. Sadly he died from a long bout with cancer last year. We also lost moderator Rick Booth aka fossil this year. 
https://www.leiknessfuneralhome.com/notices/Eric-Johnson


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## Hogwildz (Nov 28, 2018)

firefighterjake said:


> Oh . . . Pook . . . that guy's post reminds me of another poster here. Half the time I couldn't figure out what he was trying to say . . . the other half of the time I just kept hoping that folks wouldn't think everyone from Maine was like him.


Dylan & Pook were both from Maine, kinda hard not to think everyone from Maine has been drinking some tainted water, but we know better with you. ;-)


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## EatenByLimestone (Nov 28, 2018)

Fermented cranberries....


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## WiscWoody (Nov 29, 2018)

begreen said:


> BrotherBart, Elkimeg, MoHeat, Corie, rudismallfry, myself and a few others migrated from the Hearth.com BBS to the forum back in November 2005.


 Lol, I haven’t heard anyone mention a bulletin board system in many years. I and a friend used to run a C=64 BBS way back in the mid 80’s. Computers were like magic back then, so much fun!


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## begreen (Nov 29, 2018)

300 baud... not so much fun. I can remember when 9600K was like "fasten your seatbelts!".


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## WiscWoody (Nov 29, 2018)

begreen said:


> 300 baud... not so much fun. I can remember when 9600K was like "fasten your seatbelts!".


Right, we started out at 300 then 1200 then a whopping 2400 and that’s where we stayed until the end of the site. I remember we got a "deal" on a 1 GB HDD for $1000 so we could retire the stack of 1541 floppy disk drives.

I have to say that I’ve been on many forums looking for information on what I’m working on at the time but this is the only site that I’ve gone steady with. It’s a good place to hang out especially in the long cold winters while the fire crackles in the stove.

Edit: BTW- 2400 baud was the highest baud rate that the Commodore 64 could handle.


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## jetsam (Nov 30, 2018)

WiscWoody said:


> Right, we started out at 300 then 1200 then a whopping 2400 and that’s where we stayed until the end of the site. I remember we got a "deal" on a 1 GB HDD for $1000 so we could retire the stack of 1541 floppy disk drives.
> 
> I have to say that I’ve been on many forums looking for information on what I’m working on at the time but this is the only site that I’ve gone steady with. It’s a good place to hang out especially in the long cold winters while the fire crackles in the stove.



I still have a 10MB external hard drive with a bbs and a ton of apple ][ software on it in a box somewhere.

1GB would hold 6,355 1541 disks!


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## jetsam (Nov 30, 2018)

begreen said:


> 300 baud... not so much fun. I can remember when 9600K was like "fasten your seatbelts!".



I had a 300 baud hayes smartmodem that was not only almost 3 times faster than my old 110 baud acoustic coupler, but also you did not have to jam a telephone handset into it to make it work!  That was Fancy.

I think I can still whistle a 300 baud handshake well enough to get the other side to put out a carrier.


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## WiscWoody (Nov 30, 2018)

jetsam said:


> I still have a 10MB external hard drive with a bbs and a ton of apple ][ software on it in a box somewhere.
> 
> 1GB would hold 6,355 1541 disks!


I think we converted the drives to double density back then and used DD disks. That was a big improvement but yes 1GB was huge. I had a cassette drive to start out with before we set up the bbs and before the disk drives became affordable to buy, I could start to load a simple 8 bit game then go take a long shower and come back and it was just about done loading.


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## webfish (Nov 30, 2018)

ED 3000 said:


> Any idea how far back the bulletin board system version went back?



I would have to ask Craig. I know we discussed but he bought the domain name hearth.com in 1995. Not sure the BBS date.


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## webbie (Nov 30, 2018)

It went like this......
Domain purchased at end of 1995 I think - before that I had my "Stoveworks" (retail store) web site and I sold a bunch of stoves from a listing there. I also posted some info on it.
There are some wiki articles and a podcast about the start of hearth.com (here or links to such).
The Internet Archive can give anyone a perfect view into what was what and when!

Without digging too deep, it went like this. 
The original internet didn't have any interactive features because no standards (php, javascript or java, etc.) were in use. I remember reading each monthly mag (Internet rags, Byte, etc) about the up and coming languages and what they could do (stock ticker, etc.). I also went to Internet and Mac trade shows in Boston and NYC.

The original hearth.com was mostly based upon articles I wrote and "Ask the Webmaster". Ask the Webmaster was questions I took by email and then saved. I put a number (10?) on each page and eventually had numerous pages of them. At some point I transferred them to a Filemaker Pro database and a plug-in which let them be online - the mac running filemaker was on my desk at home connected with a 28K modem, but the slow speed was not noticeable since the actually pages (data aside) still came from the server farm (Pentium 90 or so - at first, a shared server but soon after I got my own co-located one which was in Doylestown PA).

So that was the first "database and search" and we were up to about 2,000 questions and answers. I continued to add articles here and there also.

The first "forum" on the site was a program called 
*Ceilidh*
https://perlwatch.net/projects/forums/ceilidh/page-source/drive_frame.html

My guess is that it could have been 1998 or so. It was fairly crude, somewhat closer to Facebook (funny that FB is so crude, yet people think it is not!)....

I then went over to a php based REAL forum software called pmachine which then changed into Expression Engine.
BB and BG and others remember that we transitioned to Xenforo about 2011 or so.....BB said it was the finest transition he was ever a part of....

I remember every single character involved...to this day. I have been cursed with a good memory. Examples.....

1. Dylan, I think, was the guy who felt it OK to say "peni$" over and over again on the original forum. At one point I had the police knock on his door and that stopped quick.
2. We all loved Elk, but I am mad at him because he told me a way to save money on my addition (use pressure treated for foundation - sitting on piers) and it's rotting away now and letting termites in. He also gave some bad advice to others...but, all in all, he also helped many people.
3. Corie is my friend on facebook as are some of the others from the forum. We loved his enthusiasm for stoves, so I paid to fly him out to the Reno show (he had never been in a plane before!) - where he met Harman and eventually got a job.

Lots of other tales and memories....but one thing I can definitely say. Our Mods and Regular Users are/were the best ever. When you look at all the acting out around the internet these days it becomes even more amazing. Sure, we saw the same thing here but it was a tiny percentage. 

The real "lesson" is one that my friends who started the first popular BB's (The Well) learned long ago. That is "you own your own words". This, in addition to staying on subject and moderation/curation is what makes for a good informational web site.

Probably preaching to the choir here, but in many ways I am disappointed in what much of the internet has become. Everything is bought and sold and used and abused as opposed to the "sharing spirit" that was more available in the early days. I don't think I have found a "great new site" for many many years. I still love forums...when I am looking to solve car or house problems, etc, those are the only places to get the info.

Happy Holidays to all.


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## webbie (Nov 30, 2018)

I think this was a 1200 baud modem (to right of computer) - probably 1986. That little girl is an engineer and an environmental attorney and is over 40. The D on the Mac stands for Drexel, because you could not buy a Mac...they gave them to colleges first. I bought it for $2500 from a teacher there who didn't need it.


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## jetsam (Nov 30, 2018)

I was an Apple guy but I knew several people who had Mac 128s.  I (grudgingly) went Mac myself after Apple killed off the Apples and the //GS got long in the tooth.

When I look at that picture I can almost hear those 3.5" drives going "chunk chunk chunk".


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## firefighterjake (Nov 30, 2018)

WiscWoody said:


> . . .
> 
> I have to say that I’ve been on many forums looking for information on what I’m working on at the time but this is the only site that I’ve gone steady with. It’s a good place to hang out especially in the long cold winters while the fire crackles in the stove.
> . ..



It truly is an odd place.

I've come and gone on numerous sites involving various interests or hobbies of mine.

I've also jumped on to sites like you to look for info at the time . . . and then never gone back . . . or go back quite infrequently.

There are a couple of forums I check from time to time.

But here at hearth.com we are a true melting pot . . . or maybe the better analogy would be a chef's salad . . . of America (and beyond) with folks from all walks of life and the four corners of the country. We have varying political and religious beliefs . . . and we are truly united by only one crazy thing: we burn wood, wood pellets, etc. . . . and yet I consider many of the folks here whom I have never met as friends. Heck, I got a "care package" from Wisconsin this year with cheese curds which I was able to try for the first time! Hearth.com is a truly unique place.


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## begreen (Dec 2, 2018)

firefighterjake said:


> Heck, I got a "care package" from Wisconsin this year with cheese curds which I was able to try for the first time! Hearth.com is a truly unique place.


Ha! And we mods have to fight for the key to the restroom. hrmph.


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## EatenByLimestone (Dec 2, 2018)

Wait, they told me there wasn't a restroom!


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## begreen (Dec 2, 2018)

It's out by the woodshed. Not approved for public use.


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## jetsam (Dec 2, 2018)

If you had a public restroom, perhaps certain persons would be better able to hold it.


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## Dix (Dec 3, 2018)

begreen said:


> Ha! And we mods have to fight for the key to the restroom. hrmph.




Awwww.

But, we love you, BG 

Ah, Pook, he got the boot, me thinx 

Damn, I've been here a long time


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## begreen (Dec 8, 2018)

Pook got the boot multiple times. He showed up like a whack-a-mole, each time a bit goofier.


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## EatenByLimestone (Dec 9, 2018)

So Pook was a guy?  I never was sure!


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## webbie (Dec 9, 2018)

EatenByLimestone said:


> So Pook was a guy?  I never was sure!



One can never be sure! But I like to think better of the women than that.....

I found this story on my personal web site about How I started. I still remember the excitement.....staying up until 4 in the morning making some little piece of code work, etc.
Back then you didn't need much security.....I just copied and pasted little snippets of code that others gave me (or I found as open-source) online and made slight mods to it.

https://craigsfire.com/how-i-become-familiar-with-computers-and-then-a-webmaster/


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## kennyp2339 (Dec 14, 2018)

begreen said:


> It's out by the woodshed. Not approved for public use.
> View attachment 234701


If you cut the moon in the door a little bigger you can season oak splits in there <2yrs prob


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## xman23 (Jan 13, 2019)

My sign up date, 2008. I wonder if that date is correct? I had been helping a friend with a stove for a few years, and knew it was the way to go in the cabin I was planing. I started burning in my new stove in 2000. I learned from the school of hard knocks. Actually not to much more than a plugged cap screen.


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## begreen (Jan 18, 2019)

kennyp2339 said:


> If you cut the moon in the door a little bigger you can season oak splits in there <2yrs prob


There's already enough splinters in the seat!


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## hossthehermit (Feb 24, 2019)

Ah, yes, Pook and his Magic Heat ......... anybody else remember Slickplant and her burning bush ???????????


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