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Matchboxpat wrote:Do you remember the Matchbox Community Hall Marc Bousquet used to have ? He quit collecting if I remember right and then MCCH came along. Can't remember the exact date but in my memory that's around 2000/2001. Is that how it all began ?

Pat, your memory of that time is the same as mine. That's how and why it began.

Matchboxpat wrote:Reminds me of the good old days when I used to go to different BBS with my 2400 bauds modem using xmodem, zmodem or kermit protocols! That was in late 80s/early 90s, before Internet was actually established and "www" meant absolutely nothing ! Boy, I am getting old...

You're not the only one who remembers those days! The internal (or even an external modem) was a huge improvement over the old fashioned method of placing the telephone handset into the interface cradle, also known as an acoustic coupler. I thought my first internal modem was like sci-fi technology.

2400 baud gave way to 4800 baud and then to 9600 baud. I remember upgrading to 9600 and thinking I was now on the cutting edge of speed LOL. Then came 14.4 followed by 28.8 and it seemed like I had barley finished paying for my (then very) expensive 33.6 model when 56K was available. I shelled out nearly a hundred bucks for that 56K modem and had a dedicated phone line just for the desktop computer. I was living right on the edge of the envelope (or so I thought).

But the modem wasn't the only thing draining my wallet back then. When the 8088 chip became old news it meant, at minimum, upgrading the entire mother board. It seemed like my 486DX was barley broken in when the Pentium chip was introduced. The race was on with ever better processors!

I don't even want to mention how expensive memory was back then. Just to upgrade to a fraction of the memory that's included in one of todays cheap computers would cost you as much as the entire computer/monitor package. Downloading or uploading a decent series of photographs was a huge investment in time. Downloading software could easily take an hour or more in some cases. Broadband did more for electronic communications than anything else.

Who remembers the early days of the wonders of a Blackberry, the slow email, the dropped calls. But it got better and better (and pretty rapidly) as the old telecommunications industry realized the direction of the future.

Then there was this guy who wanted to combine the email of a computer, the uses of a tablet and voice communication all in one device. Blackberry's creators, who dominated a huge segment of the advanced cell phone market, severely underestimated Steve Job's new device. The market for the "smart phone" blew wide open and the support technology began to rapidly catch up.

When I was watching Star Trek back in the 1960's, I never imagined that one day I would have a device in my pocket that was the size of Kirk's communicator and which combined the functions of their bulky Tricorder. It seems like light years from the days when my parents bought our first TV set in the 1950's. It was massive with a 19" diagonal screen and displayed wonderful moving pictures in gray tones.

We received two channels that had decent reception and one that was a little snowy. It opened up an entirely new realm of home entertainment. I still listened to my favorite radio shows, but soon they gave up and tried to make the transition to TV.
If I didn't want to watch TV, I could lay on my back and watch Sputnik streak across the night sky or listen to it's steady beep, beep, beep on my neighbors Ham radio. A decade later I would marvel as I watched live color pictures of man's first steps on the moon.

Soon, the mcch will be a footnote in the online history of die cast collecting. Guys who are now middle aged will one day start a discussion about the old days of online forums and how it was in the good ole days. That discussion might happen on 3D holographic projections as several members all sit in the same virtual room and have a conversation.

Alex mentioning being married and all this talk of the Usenet has brought back many vivid memories for me. I know this is off topic, so I apologize in advance.

In those days, I was active in three Usenet groups. One in particular; "alt.home repair" made a partial transition to the Web. Many of my articles on specific areas of home improvement are still valid and appear on several web sites today. Some of my political commentary also bled over into print media. My current wife was an avid follower of my comments on one particular BBS and I was a follower of her articles in a printed magazine to which I subscribed.

Back in the mid 90's, she was out to dinner one evening and the members in her party began discussing the merits of one of my recent Usenet diatribes. She mentioned aloud that she really loved the stuff I wrote (calling me by the screen name I used in those days). A member in her party mentioned that he casually knew me and that I frequented the restaurant. That lead to me being invited to a party where we would be introduced to each other.

As some know, my wife is a former Ballerina and former Circus performer. When I was introduced to her at that party, she had just finished dancing for everyone. I was quite pleased to discover this very attractive woman and accomplished dancer was also the author of my favorite political articles in a certain magazine to which I subscribed. We were already fans of each other and had yet to speak one word to each other. All I could think about as we began to talk was: "OK Joe, she's smokin' HOT so don't screw this up."

Of course, after several months, I did screw it up! There would be a few more "lady friends" and another brief marriage before we would get back together. When we were "dating" she lived two hours away from me. In the meanwhile, she moved even further away. It would be another coincidence that would reunite us. Eventually, I gave into what seems to be an obvious destiny and we married. The rest is a much longer story and I apologize for digressing but the mere mention of the Usenet took me back to some good times of days past.

Matchboxpat wrote:I wasn't aware, although I should have guessed, that he wasn't very familiar with computers and software... It does explain A LOT of things !

THe MCH used to be a huge knowledge base and I enjoyed been there in the early days. If I remember right, it was in the late 90s/early 2000s owned by Marc Bousquet. I do not remember if the forum had the same name, but I remember that Mark took over. The loss of all those years of information in the late 2000s really hit the site and the slow downfall began.

I also remember that as soon as I joined the board as the owner of the Vintage Lesney Online site, Mark gave me "Moderator" privileges, which I never asked for and never used.

I was probably crazy one day : I saw something very unusual on eBay (could remember what exactly!) and I posted a new thread "Did somebody saw this model" with the eBay link. God, did I hear about it! The worst part was that other moderators sent me very rude messages. I was not banned, but it probably came close. I knew it was again their "rules", but I just did not think about it.

Anyway...

Pat

That's why I still love books and printed magazines. These will never get lost. I can still read my 1977 MATCHBOX UK magazines.
One day all the information here on the Vintage Forum will all be lost unfortunatly.
MBXFORUM of John Nijhuis has pictures of over 120.000 Matchbox models listed with the help of many Matchbox collectors but John is almost 70 and who will run it if he can no longer do it?

Forums are good for quick infrmation and to spread the information worldwide and see what other collectors have BUT books stlll must be printed in which all the information is collected for the future.

marcel

Hopefully both John and Nick have made plans and found safe hands to take over when the inevitable eventually happens to make sure the diecast part of their life´s work lives forever..........
A fascinating to read that the internet helped tinman find real love before some of us were even online!

Tinman wrote:

Matchboxpat wrote:Reminds me of the good old days when I used to go to different BBS with my 2400 bauds modem using xmodem, zmodem or kermit protocols! That was in late 80s/early 90s, before Internet was actually established and "www" meant absolutely nothing ! Boy, I am getting old...

You're not the only one who remembers those days! The internal (or even an external modem) was a huge improvement over the old fashioned method of placing the telephone handset into the interface cradle, also known as an acoustic coupler. I thought my first internal modem was like sci-fi technology.

2400 baud gave way to 4800 baud and then to 9600 baud. I remember upgrading to 9600 and thinking I was now on the cutting edge of speed LOL. Then came 14.4 followed by 28.8 and it seemed like I had barley finished paying for my (then very) expensive 33.6 model when 56K was available. I shelled out nearly a hundred bucks for that 56K modem and had a dedicated phone line just for the desktop computer. I was living right on the edge of the envelope (or so I thought).

But the modem wasn't the only thing draining my wallet back then. When the 8088 chip became old news it meant, at minimum, upgrading the entire mother board. It seemed like my 486DX was barley broken in when the Pentium chip was introduced. The race was on with ever better processors!

I don't even want to mention how expensive memory was back then. Just to upgrade to a fraction of the memory that's included in one of todays cheap computers would cost you as much as the entire computer/monitor package. Downloading or uploading a decent series of photographs was a huge investment in time. Downloading software could easily take an hour or more in some cases. Broadband did more for electronic communications than anything else.

Who remembers the early days of the wonders of a Blackberry, the slow email, the dropped calls. But it got better and better (and pretty rapidly) as the old telecommunications industry realized the direction of the future.

Then there was this guy who wanted to combine the email of a computer, the uses of a tablet and voice communication all in one device. Blackberry's creators, who dominated a huge segment of the advanced cell phone market, severely underestimated Steve Job's new device. The market for the "smart phone" blew wide open and the support technology began to rapidly catch up.

When I was watching Star Trek back in the 1960's, I never imagined that one day I would have a device in my pocket that was the size of Kirk's communicator and which combined the functions of their bulky Tricorder. It seems like light years from the days when my parents bought our first TV set in the 1950's. It was massive with a 19" diagonal screen and displayed wonderful moving pictures in gray tones.

We received two channels that had decent reception and one that was a little snowy. It opened up an entirely new realm of home entertainment. I still listened to my favorite radio shows, but soon they gave up and tried to make the transition to TV.
If I didn't want to watch TV, I could lay on my back and watch Sputnik streak across the night sky or listen to it's steady beep, beep, beep on my neighbors Ham radio. A decade later I would marvel as I watched live color pictures of man's first steps on the moon.

Soon, the mcch will be a footnote in the online history of die cast collecting. Guys who are now middle aged will one day start a discussion about the old days of online forums and how it was in the good ole days. That discussion might happen on 3D holographic projections as several members all sit in the same virtual room and have a conversation.

Now you guys are making me feel old. My first model was 1200. 1st PC did not have a monitor but a tape feed. Punch cards were the rave and you had to protect your deck from getting mixed.

Old is the word Jim. My first was the Sinclair ZX. Then I got the good old Commodore 64 - no more pong games, I could play games with sprites in them. Joined Compunet and got in on a hacking site , trouble was most on there were 12 - 18 years old and all they were interested in was getting into places they shouldn't, I left when they moved a satellite !! How times have changed - I can Skype around the world, chat by email, in fact do almost anything I want, but have they delivered free time - I doubt it as I spend more time on computers than ever, either on boards like this or playing games that nowadays make you laugh when you saw the old games graphics and I know it definitely has never saved me on paperwork !
I often wonder when I pop my clogs what the grandkids will have to deal with - will it be good for them, I'm honestly not sure as with one blow you can disable a whole country's infrastructure in one go now which is a great tempter to some loonies.

Moyboy wrote: I often wonder when I pop my clogs what the grandkids will have to deal with - will it be good for them, I'm honestly not sure as with one blow you can disable a whole country's infrastructure in one go now which is a great tempter to some loonies.

Few operations have a back-up plan for a down computer system, much less when a whole network goes down. I've seen fast food restaurants brought to their knees when a system goes down. Sure, they can still cook hamburgers but there is no analog ordering system. They have no way to collect money or make change, not that anyone knows how to make change these days. They don't even have a cash register in the conventional sense. The point of sale has a terminal that is an ordering system, an accounting system, a credit card reader and a cash collection system all integrated in one device. For the ordering part, there are icons with pictures of the product desired. It's all been idiot proofed to the point that when it goes down, so does the whole operation.

I will miss the MCCH. In its heyday it was the most active collecting site. It had a very active community of Matchbox, Johnny Lightning, and 3 inch diecast in general. Too bad there were issues at the end that have been well documented. I try to be a "half full" type of person so I will miss the active community of collectors and a decent for sale board and all I have learned there. It created the "gathering" meeting and many of the active members of this and other diecast boards met online at MCCH.

Those of like minds with mutual interests always find each other. From the Usenet, to ISP bulletin boards, to the mcch, and up to present day, we all make connections that further our interests in collecting and our enjoyment of the hobby. The golden days of the mcch were exciting with a large number of collectors coming together in one place.

Many of the people here and in other forums can thank themselves and should be thanked for making each new virtual stepping stone greater than the last. For pioneering ever better ways to enjoy the hobby and to inform, educate and enrich the enjoyment of a hobby.

The hobby landscape was once dominated by landed insular clubs that had geographical boundaries. Clubs that members joined via the postal service, received news and information in a mailed out newsletter which were also subject to regional and/or national boundaries.

Shows and club meeting were the main source of new additions. Buying and selling also took place by way of club newsletters, magazine advertisements and personal networking. Information was slow to travel. Printed newsletters, magazines and books/catalogs ruled the day when it came to "instant resources."

I remember the first time I saw the Holy Grail of Matchbox collecting: Michael J. Stannard's "Matchbox" 1-75 Series 1953-1969 Collectors Catalog! I thought the man was pure genius. His book and guide were surely the largest single window into the hobby I had ever seen or read. Next came the book commonly called "The 40 years book." Another masterpiece of information for the collector. Still today, I look up to those who helped write and compile the contents of this book.

While I can call out the names of several individuals who have had wide reaching positive impacts on the hobby, without the masses ... the average collectors who fuel this hobby, there would be no hobby. There is no one book, no one authority, no single club, bulletin board or web site that shapes this hobby as much as the desire of individual collectors to come together and share amongst themselves.

Time shapes all things, and as one hobby venue expires another will come along to fill the gap. The shape of the new collective will be determined by progress which is both technological and generational. Collectors, all of us as a group of members, shape each new venue. If a particular venue does not meet the needs or mind set of it's members, it will die out and a new collective will emerge. It's fun to look back and remember, it's also in our human nature to go forward and make each new collective venue better than the last.