Replies

I think you can see it on the Way Back Machine on Alexa.com. I set up the original FreeRepublic.com website in Sept of '96 and installed an experimental forum soon after. We only had a few posts to it on a test basis. Ken Cook and I believe Ron Doughty and JustAmy may have posted to that original forum. I wrote the original version of the Free Republic forum during the last month or so of '96 and opened it to the public in January '97 (to the best of my recollection).

I knew FR was way alive before I stumbled upon it. Didn't know it was that far back.

Your coding was way before everyone else. But (as I recall),--you were coding for like 10 years prior to that?

Punch cards? :)

I saw that site on the Way Back machine. Brought back some fond memories. If you remember, you used to link to my website and you can see that on the Way Back machine as well if you click on "News" just under "Free Republic." I did sort of a cheap knockoff of the Drudge Site that focused on news about the Whitewater scandals. But I quickly gave that up because I just didn't have enough time in the day to do it justice.

I believe it was around January '97. Clinton was just getting inaugurated to his second term. Seems so long ago now. For the benefit of newcomers, the first few years of FR was dominated by threads about the various Clinton scandals and the fact that we had such a scumbag as our president. My daily dose of FR kept me sane during that second term of Clinton!