First post?

[Ozzy]

I used to print out some of the old threads that contained interesting material.

The earliest I have is 1997 and the big topic was the diary.

I have the old discs you could buy back then, but they don't work on my current Mac O/S.

I don't have these discs and I've never seen them either but years ago I did send a message to Stephen (I think) asking about them.

I can't recall the reply word for word but essentially I got the impression that they were simple html pages with some kind of wrapper interface (Flash or Java maybe?) that helps to explain/index and get to the html pages.

I'd emailed originally as I wanted to know if I could use the CDs on a computer with a Linux operating system.

I never did get a set of the CDs in the end but not because I didn't know if I could get them working on the Linux PC. As the meat of the CDs are the html pages I knew I'd have no problem opening those as any internet browser (Firefox/Chrome/Safari/Internet Explorer) on any operating system (Windows/Apple OSX/Linux/BSD etc) will open html pages.

--drstrange169, I haven't used a Mac for years but computers are essentially the same. If you load a CD what happens next depends on if the computer has the autorun/automount feature turned on. If it's on it will try to load the wrapper interface I mentioned above. What you should be able to do somehow when the CD is loaded is look at it's contents. Like when you look at a computer's hard drive or a USB stick when searching for a file. Have you tried this and if so do you see a bunch of html (or maybe htm) files? If you can see these files you should be able to open them with Safari, or another browser if you don't use Apple's browser.

[Magpie]

When I started here, the address was sprydernet.co.uk

[Robert]

I suspect the 1997 stuff is no longer online, but you can get back to 2004 or so using this :

http://www.casebook.org/forum/messages/4922/4976.html

[Sam Flynn]

For some reason the links are now working! Weird.

The data might be stored on really slow 3rd or 4th tier archive media. If so, they'll take a while to load.

[drstrange169]

I used to print out some of the old threads that contained interesting material.

The earliest I have is 1997 and the big topic was the diary.

I have the old discs you could buy back then, but they don't work on my current Mac O/S.

[Herlock Sholmes]

For some reason the links are now working! Weird.
It's good to see how the Casebook has changed. A lot of unfamiliar usernames (to me at least) and a couple that I recognise (Sam). One last question: what year did it begin?

[Brenda]

.

That was so much fun looking at the older threads. I saw this gem from Dan Norder which some of us should pay closer attention to:

"The point here is that science is not a magic wand for uncovering fraud. If someone wants to see certain results they very often will, consciously or unconsciously. The main feature of science that is so important is that new discoveries are repeatedly tested by others. It's this verifying of other people's results by multiple teams that makes science strong. In cases where that doesn't happen, science hasn't really weighed in to its full extent yet."

[Sam Flynn]

Just out of curiosity who made the first post on the Casebook Forum? Where would I find it?

I can't remember his name, but his signature was "Catch me when you can, Mishter Lusk". Right weirdo, he was.

[Yabs]

Hi Herlock.
I've no idea if admin recovered a lot of old threads but they are easily accessible to anyone by the Web archive search.
The whole section on Maybrick from 12 years ago seems readable for the most part

https://web.archive.org/web/20051129000427/http://casebook.org:80/forum/messages/4922/4977.html

It shouldn't matter if you use an iPad, I used an iPad myself to find it.
Maybe it's your browser, I use chrome for iPad.
That link should take you straight to the Maybrick subtopics.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Thanks for that guys. I was just curious to see what was going on and who was around in the early days. Unfortunately none of the links above would load. As I've said before I'm useless with technology but is it something to do with the fact that I have an IPad ?

[Wickerman]

This was the first Casebook Home Page, from '96 to '98, when I first came on board.

https://web.archive.org/web/20010613052750/http://casebook.org:80/about_the_casebook/showpics.html?img=cb1large.gif

Spry has made archived disks over the years, they used to be for sale but I have not seen any advertised for years.
If you can track the first archived disk down (contact Admin), you might find what you are looking for.
Casebook was created to debate the Maybrick Diary, so likely the first posts may refer to Maybrick.

[Abby Normal]

probably one of the admins?

[Yabs]

On the snapshot from 2000 a year later I tried three threads and two out of three were readable https://web.archive.org/web/20010516...sebook.org:80/

[Yabs]

Here's the earliest snapshot I could find of the original forum from 1999
Some threads may be accessible but most probably won't.

https://web.archive.org/web/20010516221434/http://forum.casebook.org:80/

[Herlock Sholmes]

I have no idea who made the first post but my guess would be Spry.
Casebook suffered a fatal server crash many years ago that erased all of the message boards except those that were quickly saved and reposted as "recovered threads", so there's no way to locate on the current message boards the first post ever.

Here is an example of a thread that was copied and reposted after the crash.

http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?t=64

JM

Thanks for that.