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It occurred to me today that I've been posting on TR for over 10 years in November. While my post count isn't nearly as high as some of the veteran elite, I've been here quite some time. Longer than any other forum or group I've been apart. I started back in 2004 and of course didn't know as much as I thought I did (still don't right?), young and naive. Figuring I've been here awhile and since I was a teen then, there just had to be some interesting old posts I could dig up. Sure enough it didn't take but viewing a few of them to find crazy posts. If I were me now, I'd have virtual kicked my own ass for being so obnoxious.

Without further ado.....

viewtopic.php?f=29&t=24132

Many of you have been here much longer than I and I'm curious if others also "grew up" here on TR like I have. If so and you feel like sharing some funny posts that you made many years ago and want to laugh about, post it up so we can all get a chuckle.

WHAT WAS THE IDEA?!?!?!? Did anything ever come of it?

I was a TR "lurker" for 3+ years before becoming a member and posting in the forums, so I don't have many "embarrassing" posts to share. Most of my computer knowledge can almost entirely be credited to reading TR articles and posting/reading in the forums.

Well, most of my posts are still in the Distributed Computing forum even though I've been out of the F@H game for a long time. This thread is a classic IMO and still has more of my posts than any other single thread including the BBQ ones. Good times.

Oh god I couldn't even recall it when I was reading through the post . I wonder if it was the hard drive bay built into a keyboard idea, or an entire computer built into a keyboard. I'm not even sure that wasn't a thing already back then. I know that there are a few companies that did this in in 07-09ish and probably still doing it now. I can't for sure tell you what the "idea" was. I'm sure it was a pretty crappy one that as a kid I thought was just the damn bees knees. It is way to funny reading old posts you've made about 10 years ago. Looking back at it I'm just screaming inside my head going "YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME! No way I said that."

Edit: Wow Fish, I haven't folded in AGES. I was just talking about the folding concept to someone a few weeks ago. With all of the offices I do work for now, I wonder if I could get them to agree to an agent running in the background for the sake of doing good... hmmm, 140+ workstations

Welch wrote:

Oh god I couldn't even recall it when I was reading through the post . I wonder if it was the hard drive bay built into a keyboard idea, or an entire computer built into a keyboard. I'm not even sure that wasn't a thing already back then. I know that there are a few companies that did this in in 07-09ish and probably still doing it now.

Uh, there were some companies doing that in the '80s.

It's easy to find your first post -- you just have to do an egosearch and click on the last page (though you can't find your first comments to the site news / front page, which I was doing for a while before registering to post -- unregistered comments being allowed on the front page in the early days). Mine is here (with contributions from even-older-timers Forge and Starfalcon): twelve years ago, we were comparing ATi with nVidia, lamenting AMD's position relative to Intel, looking forward to new versions of DirectX, and complaining about Intel graphics. So as far as I can tell, nothing has changed.

GET OFF MY LAWN!

And no, I'm not going back to my old posts. I feel ashamed enough as it is.

morphine wrote:

GET OFF MY LAWN!

And no, I'm not going back to my old posts. I feel ashamed enough as it is.

Amen. When I first got here in 2003, I was no less a turd than I am today, but I was a different, more embarrassing turd.

I've got 7 months on you here. Looks like my first post was helping someone install drivers for their A7N8X-E Deluxe motherboard. Oh what fun.
I definitely remember some immature conversations in R&P while I was still trying to figure life out. *shudder*

This is post #20,874 for me. I remember when their were like 20 smart people on the forums. Signal to noise ratio was great back then. I'm still the same cantankerous, sarcastic know-it-all I was 13 years ago, only I'm better looking now.

I'm more amazed though by all the people who have joined, yet have zero posts.

This thread makes me feel extremely old experienced.

Anyway, was the magic idea the concept of a "patend"?

My guess is that it's a mashup of the word 'patent' and 'pretend'

Nearly thirteen years here, although I didn't post much in the early days -- was more active on LostCircuits and Ace's Hardware, the former of which is now in archival status and the latter of which is long gone. JBI and maybe a few of the other old timers were active on Ace's Hardware in its heyday.

Have to give credit to Scott & Crew for keeping an independent tech site going this long without selling up, caving in, shutting down or bailing out.

Yeah it's quite an achievement when you look at how many other similar sites have fallen by the wayside. Man how time flies.

Looks like my first post on these forums was helping someone fix their VIA MVP3 AGP woes.

That company produced so much **** hardware.

I've only signed up about 5 years ago but I was a front page lurker long before that. What really got me active were the local meet ups and I eventually became a top 10 contributor. Since the podcast has gone to a new format, I now enjoy stumping the authors live on the air with good questions.

Vrock wrote:

This is post #20,874 for me. I remember when their were like 20 smart people on the forums. Signal to noise ratio was great back then. I'm still the same cantankerous, sarcastic know-it-all I was 13 years ago, only I'm better looking now.

I'm more amazed though by all the people who have joined, yet have zero posts.

It's really important to have a steady influx of new people coming in. My previous forum home of ~8 years died a slow and painful death. It was a combination of overall site decline and failure to give the forums any sort of promotion. Once the number of users falls below critical mass (especially if you lose key people), you get a mass exodus of members. The site eventually went under completely. One bright spot is that it took most of my early-20's political rants with it.

I've been visiting TechReport fairly regularly since 2008, but I've only been active in the forums for less than 2 years.

Not particularly embarrassing, but I'm still waiting for anyone to reply to my first post from November 2002. I can't believe no-one has tried the 3GHz P4 in that Shuttle yet?

I did end up buying the P4 2.4B, but never did go small-form-factor.

I joined here back in 2006, when I was just a 16 year old pizza faced semi-noob in a constant state of being "about to build." I doubt anyone remembers me as my old username mafropetee. At one point I put together a frankenstein of a build based around a 3.8GHz water cooled Pentium 4 and a Radeon X1950 Pro, most of which I bought off of a friend who had the parts lying around. I remember one Flying Fox always being the first to answer build questions, and he always had excellent advice. One of many great regulars who were always ready to help, in fact I remember a lot of you guys who have posted in this thread already from way back then.

I built the first computer that I could truly call mine with advice acquired here. It seems like a lifetime ago. Now I feel old.

I must have started visiting here right after Scott split off from Ars Technica... '98 or '99? I didn't register for the fora until much later because I didn't have much to say.

Fun times.

CRT vs LCD. Derfunk was the first to reply. . I appreciate all the helpful input over the years, but also tend toward the following sentiment:

derFunkenstein wrote:

Amen. When I first got here in 2003, I was no less a turd than I am today, but I was a different, more embarrassing turd.

Edit: 12 days over 12 years.

edit p2: Anyone remember being a penpal for my 2nd grade class?

I don't post that much but I'm familiar with most of you and I remember Ludi from Aces and Lost Circuits and Ryu has been around forever.

Egads, I've been here nearly 13 years?!?? I feel old. Well, I guess I'm allowed to feel old, I *am* getting old!

Other than posting maybe 2-3 times a year at Ars and Slashdot, this is the only forum I participate in any more. I'm still resisting the pressures to sign up for Facebook and all the other newfangled (haha, get off my lawn!) "social media" sites (OK, I'm on LinkedIn, but that's not the same thing...) so TR is pretty much my online "home", and has been since shortly after I signed up.

Edit: As far as where I "grew up" online goes... well, I'm too old to have grown up online (in the Internet sense), and wasn't into the BBS scene. I did discover Usenet when I was in my early 30s, and spent countless hours reading and posting on rec.crafts.brewing and alt.music.progressive. Ahh, those were the days, before AOL (and later on, the spam flood) destroyed Usenet.

Been here a while, and I only post here and on the DSLReports forum for my ISP. I started off my Internet life at Cheeseplant's House so I'm in the Internet Old Codgers group. I'd been on the Internet a while before my friend showed me this new text with hyperlink thing that became the Web.

just brew it! wrote:

Egads, I've been here nearly 13 years?!??

So, based on your total posts: ~3k posts/year, ballpark 10/day. @Damage should fly you out to the annual bbq's on us!

MarkG509 wrote:

just brew it! wrote:

Egads, I've been here nearly 13 years?!??

So, based on your total posts: ~3k posts/year, ballpark 10/day. @Damage should fly you out to the annual bbq's on us!

Heh...

Even if such a thing were in the cards, between getting to the airport, dealing with airport security, the inevitable flight delays, and somehow getting from Grand Rapids to Holland, it is significantly faster for me to drive!

heh. my first post was about guns But this place helped me build my first working computer and trouble shoot a ton of things along the way

TR has been my homepage since before the forums even existed. It is usually the first web-page that comes up on any PC I build and most VMs, too. I've whined about the new format, the new, new format and color choices. Man, I do love this place; even if I'm not posting every year (day) like some do.

Vrock wrote:

This is post #20,874 for me. I'm still the same cantankerous, sarcastic know-it-all I was 13 years ago, only I'm better looking now.

Still dyslexic too?, I think you might mean 20,784

Lol, I just checked what my first post here was

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=3457&p=29836#p29836

Suprisingly, I was looking for some Voodoo 2 cards lol.....some things never change lol

I am also getting close to 14 years now...egads where has the time gone...

And to think I was at the very first TR BBQ, before it became the huge thing it is today.

Here is to another decade with TR

TR is the only hardware site left in my daily rotation. I remember back in high school I would hit up 5-10 a day.