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Stellafane Internet & Web History

On the Internet before the Web, ~1985...

John Martin believes that Stellafane ran one of the first BBS (Bulletin Board System) in the state of Vermont starting sometime around 1985. He wrote a BBS application for a Commodore 64 computer which was located in the bunkhouse. This was a dial-up system, you had to call the BBS and hope no one else was connected, or you would get a busy signal. The BBS was a text terminal system, and had meeting notices, a message board where people could leave messages and some picture files, in essence what we do today on the web before the web came into existence (pictures would be listed by file name, and would have had to be downloaded to be viewed).

Around 1990 we upgraded to a commercial BBS (Buffalo BBS). That lasted another few years until Steve Bumrucker got a application going on the actual internet. Steve had access to a server which was very expensive at the time, but that was Stellafane's first presence on the internet before the World Wide Web came into existance.

Web Beginnings, 1994-1997

Image of 1997 Stellafane Home Page
Screen capture of the top of the 1997 Stellafane Home Page

The first Stellafane web page was on the web in 1994 and it was started by Steve Baumrucker, MD "Doctor to the Stars". Like many astronomy sites, it had a black star field background and bright aqua text. A note at the top of the page admonishes you that "This page will look worse than an early Hubble pic if you don't have at least Netscape 2.0!", a reminder about how fast browser technology was evolving back then. We started out as Stellafane.com, and carried this forward until 2007 when we switched to Stellafane.org.

By 1997, the credits page listed the following people as helping out Steve with the web site:

Visit the January 24, 1997 Stellafane Home Page
Note that we have disabled all of the off-page hyperlinks, as we don't want you to get stuck in a time warp (and they wouldn't work anyway!).

Second Generation, 1998-2005

Image of 2003 Home Page
Screen capture of the top of the 2003 Stellafane Home Page
Tom Spirock
Tom Spirock, 2004
Sitting outside the
Pink Clubhouse.

Tom Spirock took over as webmaster, and in June 1998 he introduced a new look to the web site that featured a pink background that was a good match to the color of the pink clubhouse (note the color of the web page image above, and the color of the pink clubhouse behind Tom in the photo at right). It also had a framed-based navigation bar along the bottom of the screen. Under his stewardship, the web site grew quite a bit as he added more material and built up extensive photographic and then video coverage of the conventions. That advent of digital cameras, of which Tom was an early adaptor, played a big role in providing photos for the website.

Tom recruited Ken Slater as "ATM Webmaster" in November 1998. Ken started what was to become a large section on mirror making. Later Ken added a section on the Stellafane Mirror Class, and coded up a Moon Phase and Equinox calculator based on embedded JavaScript in the web page.

While Tom continued to ask people for articles and photos, Tom did most of the work on the web himself as volunteers were scarce to non-existent. Ken did all the content creation and web management in the ATM and mirror class areas. During much of this time, Tom was resident at Big Bear Solar Observatory in California obtaining a PhD. in Electrical Enginerring, and being webmaster was a job that could be done away from Stellafane.

Visit the December 19, 2003 Stellafane Home Page
Once again, we have disabled all the of the off-page links, while on-page jumps and "click-to-enlarge photo" links are turned on. We even let you turn off the navigation frame.

Current Web, 2006...

Ken Slater
Ken Slater

Tom Spirock retired as webmaster at the end of 2005, and Ken Slater took over in early 2006. Ken had been part of a small group at the club that also included Wayne Zuhl, Iliana Filby and Glenn Becker who were working on a web site redesign. The group's goal was to make the Stellafane web look "more modern" and easier to navigate. The result is the pages you are currently viewing...

Jay Drew
Jay Drew

In 2006, Jay Drew created a Links Page, and edited it for more than a decade. It rapidly become our most access page, a huge success.

2007 Award In 2007, Ken Slater and the new website won second place in the Astronomical League's Webmaster Award competition. The award is given to "ac­knowledge the club Webmaster who does an outstanding job of website design and administration."

2007-Sep Update Two big (for the website at least) changes in September 2007:

2012-2013 Update More evolution:

2013 Astronomical Leagure Webmaster Award

2013 Award In 2013, Ken Slater and updated website won first place in the Astronomical League's Webmaster Award competition. The award is given to the club Webmaster who develops "an Outstanding Website." It was presented as a surprise to him at the 2013 Convention by the Astronomical League president.

Patrick Dodson
Patrick Dodson

In 2016, Patrick Dodson became assistant webmaster. He currently is responsible for the home page, news & calendar, and member activities pages. He also produces the annual convention photo gallery, and works on special projects like the Founder's pages.

2017 Update We bought an SSL certificate for the first time and transitioned the site to use HTTPS:// protocol.

Glenn Becker
Glenn Becker

In 2022, Glenn Becker took over the Links Page. It had been neglected for a few years, and he is now regularly updating it, removing or fixing broken links and adding newly discovered ones.

2023 Update More evolution: We are starting a multi-year effort to make our pages mobile device friendly. Again, we have a lot of pages, and this will take a few years to fully accomplish. Some older pages, such as past conventions, past mirror class pages, and certain pages with large graphic content, will not get converted and will have to be viewed on something larger the a current phone. All our pages currently work on devices as large or larger than an 8-inch tablet.