[Harp-L] archive update

[fjm <mktspot@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Wow!, I have not ever been able to easily find anything in that era of 
the archives ever.  It has literally been close to a decade since the 
early wku server stuff has been readily available.  When it resided at 
wku (Western Kentucky University) you had to download it to view it or 
use gopher which was arcane at best.  Dig it is superb.  I found exactly 
what I was looking for in about 3  seconds. Being able to just go 
directly to the first post ever on the list is amazing in an of itself. 
 Maybe I'm just nostalgic but I consider those first few years at wku 
to be a golden era of the internet and harp-l specificly.  What you have 
to remember about this stuff it was it was all happening sans browsers. 
 Anyone connected to the internet was either at a university or defense 
site or a complete geek with a compuserve dial up account.  Lynx wasn't 
even out yet when the list started.  This was all done text only over 
1200 to 2400 baud modems or off mainframes and shell accounts using 
PINE/ELM if you were lucky or VI if you weren't.  I remember Chris 
Pierce the list founder writing excitedly about a new program he'd just 
seen, Mosaic.  This was of course the non commercial predecessor to 
Netscape the first widely used browser program.  I guess what I'm 
getting at is anyone posting to a group at this time was a major geek, 
dedicated and willing to put up with a lot of trouble to gain access and 
post.  The signal to noise ratio of the list is quite good and people 
were so very, very polite then.  Search on apology and see how many hits 
you get and it isn't people who accidently posted twice like it is now. 
 I arrived at harp-l in the later part of the 2nd year.  I remember 
subscribing then spending the next week or so downloading and reading 
the archives so I wouldn't be a complete idiot once I started posting. 
Didn't work but at least I tried.  The harmonica landscape has 
completely changed since then and the internet and the ability to 
network is largely responsible for that change.  Harp-l in particular 
has been the impetus for a lot of the change.  One of the ironies of 
harp-l is that it allowed the harmonica world to gather for a time then 
as the internet became more mainstream and people weren't as fascinated 
with just anything harmonica new groups sprang up.  I don't really know 
whether to call it the Balkanisation or the diasporisation of the 
harmonica world.  The net effect is similar.  Just remeber this is where 
it all started and Ben Nathanson is the guy who let us all be able to 
access it again.  Chris Pierce and Hunter Goatley are also due praise 
for their vision in providing the infrastructure in the first place. 
Gary Indiana Warren deserves a mention because he had the foresight to 
download this stuff to his hard drive before it was gone forever.  He's 
the source of the current info.  Since I'm mentioning names I'll mention 
another, Keith Graham for hosting an archive source and providing the 
.org name to us.  He's been quite helpful in this entire process. 
Please do visit his site, www.harpamps.org  fjm