Questions Re: History of the Board

[Will O'B]

I do remember that the original website was called "The Tinwhistle Table" because it was initially not much more than a page with a table of tinwhistle manufacturers and the whistle keys they made and the prices, etc. I named the NEWSLETTER "Chiff & Fipple" and only later did I go ahead and change the name of the website to Chiff & Fipple. Then, a couple of years ago, I changed the name of the newsletter to "6hole Theory," a move which has been rightfully ignored by my readers. C&F dates from either 1995 or 1996. I THINK it was 1996.

Interesting. Thanks. Just hard to imagine it going on for almost 10 years.

I still wish all of the archives from that era were still available. I would have enjoyed browsing through it.

Will O'Ban

[Will O'B]

Pardon me for being a buffoon, but what exactly is a "chiff"?

It's late at night (1:12 a.m.) with no one else around.

Ahhh . . . a *newbie* question. As I understand it, it's not really what is a chiff, but rather what is chiff. It is something that you experience with your ears. A certain sound that a tin whistle produces. Now the fact that I am far more of a newbie than you, JGilder, I shall leave the technical definition to a more learned Chiffster.

BTW, this in no way implies that I think you are a newbie. No sir, not in the least. It's just that in the past, that was one of those questions folks who were new to the board would typically ask. And, like I said, I'll leave the answer to someone else who can do it justice.

Will O'Ban

[Dale]

Got this from Teri-K. Reproduced by permission.

Hey Dale

I saw that post and started thinking, "what year was that?" Although trivia, it could be fun to put on the main site in you spare time

What I can remember:

I stumbled upon the website in 1996. Actually, it wasn't a matter of stumbling; it was a focused search for anything whistle related. At that time it was an information source with some "viewer email". I recall some advice articles that date from 1996-1997 in the "Journal of the Academy of Fipple and Flageolet Surgeons". I think the newsletter was distributed at that time as well. At least I remember getting it then. At the time, we were living on Orcas Island off the coast of Bellingham, Washington ( 1.5 hr. ferry ride to the mainland) and it was a lifeline to other whistle players.

The first board started in 1998. I can't remember the hosting service for that one to save my life. It went for almost 2 years at the original location. The hacking and Beavis & Butthead types starting infiltrating, so you changed the location to Coolboard for the added security features. Coolboard lasted for about a year, but we had to move because they were going belly up. Rich stepped in and offered a hosting location in 2001.

I'm trying to remember who was on the original board. Only a handful of names come to mind: Tony Higgins, Bob Pegritz, Loren, Jessie, SteveJ, Tom (Larry?) Madden, dakotaMouse. I don't think the membership was more than 100 at the time. The very first flame war I can recall was on Coolboard over people unsubscribing because of an NRA comment you made in the newsletter. That was in 2000(?). It consisted of about 5 or 6 posts and then fizzled out. Makes you chuckle now, eh?

[Dale]

Personally, though, I think one of the oddest chapters in C&F history, something which nobody has every been able to explain to me why I did , is the brief corporate take-over of Chiff & Fipple by Martha Stewart's company.

For a few days, this is what people saw when they went to www.chiffandfipple.com

http://www.chiffandfipple.com/martha/martha.html

[Dale]

And, finally, I now proclaim that, arbitrarily, March 25, 2006 will be both my 50th birthday AND the 10th anniversary of Chiff & Fipple. Well, the birthday part is not arbitrary. The anniversary part is. I'm now 99% confident I started C&F sometime in 1996.

Dale

[Flyingcursor]

That means you were on the "cutting edge" of Al Gore's invention.

I just missed my third anniversary at C&F. I should have made a fuss about it.

[Brigitte]

I remember stumbling over the site autumn of 97. When looking into
http://web.archive.org/web/*hh_/chiffandfipple.com/ there is a history of C&F from 99 onwards. I cannot remember the old url for the tinwhistle table anymore. If you still have the old url on file somewhere you most likely can see it on webarchive and that tells you when the first websave has happend, I remember it being archived when I did checks on there, the tinwhistle table of Feb 98 which I have still on my other computer somewhere was stated there with 200 members at that time. If I did it right I even have somewhere a saving of the old archive before it got shut down, could not find it on a first search though.

I found the mailing list archived which was on listbot in the beginning , the issue dates come up under http://web.archive.org/web/*hh_/www.listbot.com/ but there is no content of the newsletters behind them anymore as listbot does not host that long a time. But I most likely have about 350 of your newsletters stored on my computer if there is any need

Thanks for it all!
Brigitte

edited to correct a feb 97 to feb 98

[Will O'B]

Got this from Teri-K. Reproduced by permission.

Thanks, Dale.

Will O'Ban

[TonyHiggins]

I discovered the site by getting an email from a psychiatrist I worked with that had one of those funny essays by Casey O'Rourke. Someone had sent it to him from Dale's site. I think it was the one about the smelly goat, which was considered to be worse than having a tin whislte player in the house. The reprint had a link to the chiff & fipple site, which I promptly visited. It had never occured to me to search the internet for something related to tin whistles. I was living in a hermetically sealed tin whistle universe of one at the time. I thought I was the Omega Man of tin whistles back then (notice allusion to Charleton Heston) and suddenly found out there were others like myself alive and wandering the wastelands. Now, I know there are whistle players swarming like ants all around me, especially since Riverdance.
Tony

[Dale]

I remember stumbling over the site autumn of 97. When looking into
http://web.archive.org/web/*hh_/chiffandfipple.com/ there is a history of C&F from 99 onwards. I cannot remember the old url for the tinwhistle table anymore. If you still have the old url on file somewhere you most likely can see it on webarchive and that tells you when the first websave has happend, I remember it being archived when I did checks on there, the tinwhistle table of Feb 97 which I have still on my other computer somewhere was stated there with 200 members at that time. If I did it right I even have somewhere a saving of the old archive before it got shut down, could not find it on a first search though.

I found the mailing list archived which was on listbot in the beginning , the issue dates come up under http://web.archive.org/web/*hh_/www.listbot.com/ but there is no content of the newsletters behind them anymore as listbot does not host that long a time. But I most likely have about 350 of your newsletters stored on my computer if there is any need

Thanks for it all!
Brigitte

I've been trying to think of the old URL. There was never a tinwhistletable domain name. It would have been a subdomain, probably of wwisp.com, which was my first ISP. HEY! wait a minute!

There's some big big on Irish music somewhere that has it listed in the back under resources. I think they had the old url. I'll have to look for my copy.

[Brigitte]

Here we go

http://web.archive.org/web/*hh_/www.wwisp.com/~dwisely/

also found the very old address for Bil McKenty but this url http://www.netaxs.com/~wmckenty/whistle.html does not bring up anything anymore for Bil... maybe a full address still does the job.

Brigitte

[izzarina]

I'm Dale Wisely, the Undisputed King of Internet Whistle Journalism, and I'll be your waiter today.  And your host.

Hey look!! It's before Mahi mahi was the special of the day!

[Dale]

And that leads to

http://web.archive.org/web/199904270232 ... /news.html

Which a very early newsletter. In it, the author, ... me..., refers to having sent out email newsletters for "some time."

DAMN THIS MYSTERIOUS DALE WISELY! If only we could find him and simply ask him!!



Dale Wisely

[jGilder]

DAMN THIS MYSTERIOUS DALE WISELY! If only we could find him and simply ask him!!

Face it, Dale -- you've created a monster.

[jbarter]

Pardon me for being a buffoon

Nope.