ghetdjc320 Posted February 9, 2021 Posted February 9, 2021 Curious to know the origins of our Comanche Club and couldn’t find the info anywhere. Any care to share the story about how/when things got started, who got things going and a general history?
MiNi Beast Posted February 9, 2021 Posted February 9, 2021 I wanna day started from a yahoo group chat or something. @Pete M be chiming in at somepoint he may remember.
mjeff87 Posted February 9, 2021 Posted February 9, 2021 It was originally a Yahoo group. Ahhh....the good old days, lol.
Dzimm Posted February 9, 2021 Posted February 9, 2021 Yeah Pete knows, he told me the story when he was here visiting. I'm sure he'll share the story!
Pete M Posted February 9, 2021 Posted February 9, 2021 the bullet points are Tom Aslith created a yahoo group back in like 98 for MJ owners. yahoo groups were basically a way to send mass emails back and forth to others in the group (the internet was still rather young back then, nothing like today). the platform worked ok if you have just a few members, but had severe limitations once it grew. I discovered it maybe 5 months after creation and jumped right in tot he addiction. a year or 2 later out of the blue Tom asked me if I want to take the reigns. he was selling his truck and getting out of the whole thing (pretty sure it was health reasons but I cannot remember for sure). of course I jumped at that opportunity! fast forward to I think 05? and we had clearly outgrown the yahoo groups so I set about finding a free forum software. I bought ourselves a little corner of the internet and with the help of all you guys/gals, here we are today.
derf Posted February 9, 2021 Posted February 9, 2021 I remember those email lists and Usenet groups. Waiting to get home, dial in with my 28.8K modem and waiting for 10 minutes for all of that text to download. Then I would read everything, queue up the replies, and log in again to upload them. And that was quite the improvement over the 2400 bps (not Kbps or Mbps) I had in college to dial in to the campus mainframe and the old BBS's.
mjeff87 Posted February 9, 2021 Posted February 9, 2021 I couldn't remember Tom's name......I remembered it being Azlith or something like that. I also joined NAXJA back when it was the "XJ Forum", also a Yahoo group (that's why my handle there is the only different one than all the other forums I'm on, it's Jeff in VA......some early members put their locations in their screen names so folks knew where they were in the country). My member number is (was) 177. I still check in over there from time to time, but haven't made a post in years.
ghetdjc320 Posted February 9, 2021 Author Posted February 9, 2021 8 hours ago, Pete M said: the bullet points are Tom Aslith created a yahoo group back in like 98 for MJ owners. yahoo groups were basically a way to send mass emails back and forth to others in the group (the internet was still rather young back then, nothing like today). the platform worked ok if you have just a few members, but had severe limitations once it grew. I discovered it maybe 5 months after creation and jumped right in tot he addiction. a year or 2 later out of the blue Tom asked me if I want to take the reigns. he was selling his truck and getting out of the whole thing (pretty sure it was health reasons but I cannot remember for sure). of course I jumped at that opportunity! fast forward to I think 05? and we had clearly outgrown the yahoo groups so I set about finding a free forum software. I bought ourselves a little corner of the internet and with the help of all you guys/gals, here we are today. Thank for the info Pete and everyone else! Man I wonder what the NOS parts supply chain looked like in 98'.
eaglescout526 Posted February 9, 2021 Posted February 9, 2021 3 minutes ago, ghetdjc320 said: Man I wonder what the NOS parts supply chain looked like in 98'. I can tell you that just about every Renix/MJ specific part was discontinued by 01. At least that’s what Chrysler says for most parts.
ghetdjc320 Posted February 9, 2021 Author Posted February 9, 2021 3 minutes ago, eaglescout526 said: I can tell you that just about every Renix/MJ specific part was discontinued by 01. At least that’s what Chrysler says for most parts. That sounds about right. I remember reading somewhere that 10 years after the production run ends they no longer produced parts. The 92 sounds like it was just a "lets use up these extra parts" run. So, out of curiosity, how many active members do we have now?
Eagle Posted February 10, 2021 Posted February 10, 2021 8 hours ago, mjeff87 said: I also joined NAXJA back when it was the "XJ Forum", also a Yahoo group (that's why my handle there is the only different one than all the other forums I'm on, it's Jeff in VA......some early members put their locations in their screen names so folks knew where they were in the country). My member number is (was) 177. I still check in over there from time to time, but haven't made a post in years. If there was a Yahoo group for XJs, it wasn't the foundation for NAXJA. Prior to NAXJA, there was an XJ forum. I don't remember the name of it, but it was an actual forum. The domain was owned by an individual, and he had the contract with whatever service was hosting it. I was active on it, along with a number of others. We would send the guy money periodically to keep things running. And then, one fine day, he just ... disappeared. My fuzzy recollection is that he pulled his disappearing act right after having conducted a fairly successful fund raising campaign, but I'm no longer clear on that. Anyhoo ... the guy who owned it was in absentia. We kept it going for a short while by sending money directly to the hosting service, but that eventually ended when they realized they were no longer dealing with the owner of the domain. Plus -- the now-missing owner was the only person with the password to be able to get in and act as admin for the site. Somebody (I don't remember who) put together a campaign to raise funds to migrate the whole mess over to a new domain, on a new server, using new software, and with paid memberships. The deal was that people who chipped in to get it started (IIRC we ponied up $150 each as seed money) would be established as Life Members. I chipped in. Somebody knew somebody who drew up a set of by-laws, and NAXJA was born. By comparison, the Comanche Club was (from my perspective) much easier. I wheeled an MJ in those days, and I was of the opinion that NAXJA didn't really give Comanches the coverage or respect they deserve. I was thinking about starting a forum dedicated to MJs but I had no idea how to go about doing it. And then I woke up one day to find that some dude named Pete M had gone and done it. So I signed up and sent Pete a few bucks, and here we are.
Jesse J Posted February 10, 2021 Posted February 10, 2021 I just realized that in 98 they where still making xjs and comanches where only 13 years old at the oldest. reminds me of the people who are into fj cruisers now.
derf Posted February 10, 2021 Posted February 10, 2021 I became a member of the Jeeps Unlimited forum back when I got my new off the showroom floor 2001 XJ (not the one I have now).
fiatslug87 Posted February 10, 2021 Posted February 10, 2021 21 minutes ago, Jesse J said: ...reminds me of the people who are into fj cruisers now. Hey, I'm one of those too.
Jesse J Posted February 10, 2021 Posted February 10, 2021 1 minute ago, fiatslug87 said: Hey, I'm one of those too. oh cool. they are pretty cool not my thing but still cool
ComancheKid45 Posted February 10, 2021 Posted February 10, 2021 I vaguely remember the Yahoo group, I was only in there a short time before this site came about.
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now