Happy 18th Birthday boards.ie

Cloud

Hi all -

18 years ago today, at 3:36 PM, I wrote the first post on a discussion forum I'd set up to talk about the game Quake. It went something like...

Cloud wrote: »

Posted by John Breslin on February 12, 1998 at 15:36:23:
The first of many messages I hope!
John.
quake.ie - WWWBoard

Two years later, 16 years ago today, we launched boards.ie, with this letter:

Cloud wrote: »

12 February, 2000

Hello IGN-Cloud Boards users,

On the occasion of the second anniversary of my setting up the first bulletin board at quake.ie, I wanted to let you all know that there is a change in the air as regards our bulletin board service. It’s called boards.ie , and it will be the new home of the existing Cloud Boards currently at the IGN.

The move should be fairly transparent to those visiting the old site, as I aim to redirect all old URLs to the new boards.ie pages.

We hope to keep all existing user accounts, obviously those who don’t want to use the new service can just stop using their usernames. But we would appreciate if all users would read the terms of the boards.ie service when they are drafted, new users will also be obliged to read these when they register for the boards.

So here are a few reasons behind the changes that will take place:

1. We want to have a centralised set of boards, not just gaming. At the moment, the Cloud Boards are THE boards, but with boards.ie we will have both a bigger target audience and also a greater range of boards in each category (e.g. Work – Wanted, Available; For Sale – Computers, CDs; Technology – Web, Hardware etc.).
2. The audience we are aiming for [stemming from the easier-to-remember web address] will bring a bigger input to the gaming scene as well. We want to get some publicity for Irish gaming by maintaining links with the IGN, and by promoting their services where at all possible.
3. We want to do something along the lines of www.hungersite.com. The main aim of this would be to use our clout as a community to raise money for computers for Irish schools (“Comps 4 Kids”). People put their favourite school forward with the school’s reasons for needing a computer, we choose 10 such schools at the start of the month, and at the end of the month we pick one from those 10 to receive the computer based on the best reasons they have given. To cover the costs involved in this, we will have five small ad links on our main boards.ie page, and a normal banner ad on all other pages. Spare cash goes to the Irish charity of the month. This idea depends on your support.

So when will all this happen? The preliminary move (for all our existing users) will take place towards the end of February 2000 – with an official launch later on. Basically I’d like you to access the site ahead of the masses and let us know what you think, you can send feedback directly to myself [address removed] - we hope to have a prize for the best comment or suggestion.

It seems like longer since I set up the original WWWBoard and then of course came the Cloud Boards. I guess these things have a natural evolution of sorts and this is the next step! Hope you will continue to visit the new boards.

Best regards,

John Breslin (Cloud Internet) / Tom Murphy (Spin Solutions)

We've come a long way, and now we're 18, all grown up! But I just wanted to say thanks to you all for being part of this journey, and I'm looking forward to seeing where we go next. Thanks to our moderators, users, readers, investors, sponsors, directors and staff, present and past.

The next in many more messages I hope!

John.
--

KingBrian2

Happy birthday Boards.ie. Hey that is really cool so your the spark that created all this. Nice, Nice. Give yourself a pat on the back.

Dtp1979

Does that mean boards.ie is legally allowed to drink now?

aaronjumper

Dtp1979 wrote: »

Does that mean boards.ie is legally allowed to drink now?

Time for shots!

BMJD

Good excuse to get wasted tonight, thanks

Poor Uncle Tom

So, where's the beers tonight??????

Duff

Can I come too?

Deep Six

Happy birthday boards

The_Valeyard

Dtp1979 wrote: »

Does that mean boards.ie is legally allowed to drink now?

And score her in a nightclub!! Wonder if she is easy? :P


Happy birthday. May you have many more.

Sir Osis of Liver.

Did his balls drop yet?

Harry Palmr

can join the army and die for a reason no one can quite recall.

scudzilla

Did you put a secret back door in the site, one that only you know about, one that can delete people's profiles, ban people etc?

I'd have great craic with something like that

L.Jenkins

If boards were a person, they could legally attend a Beers event :P

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Well, thank you for my 10 years here. It has been entertaining, enlightening, maddening at times, amusing, and a source of great distraction for this oul fella.

Well done to you and the Mods and backroom boffins for all.

Toots

Happy Birthday Boards!

Jager bombs all around!

BMJD

BMJD wrote: »

Good excuse to get wasted tonight, thanks

Fuggin love you board, your my best friend ever *puke*

BettePorter

I wish I knew what my first contact with boards was. Before the crash of 20** When we all lost our logins! !! It was fated though because i met the other side of my brain via it. If not for you id never have met her. It has become my go-to source of everything for probably the last 10 years. I thank you for that!

warpdrive

Someone use that Internet time machine website to get some screenshots of the earliest dates possible

Ronan|Raven

Better times back then!

It has grown a lot since the old Quake.ie Days.
It was some fun back then, the whole newness of it all. The lack of multiple forums. How did we ever survive with only 4 forums?!
The outrage when we got sub sports forums..
The great things it helped facilitate such as Ireland Off Line.

I find it crazy to think of all the hours spent on these forums over the last 19 odd years. The years go too fast

humanji

Itzy wrote: »

If boards were a person, they could legally attend a Beers event :P

Would they want to, though?

recylingbin

Wishing yourself happy birthday is a bit billy, is it not?

Manach

Here's to 18 more years.

Cloud

warpdrive wrote: »

Someone use that Internet time machine website to get some screenshots of the earliest dates possible

dudara

Here to many more years of Boards.

I love this site, there's nothing else like it

KingBrian2

Cloud wrote: »

AH God! That's Great.:D Look at it ancient right there.

Ruu

I remember when this was all fields, the mods would beat you black and blue and you'd like it and then..

oh happy birthday.

Sonics2k

The_Valeyard wrote: »

And score her in a nightclub!! Wonder if she is easy? :P


Happy birthday. May you have many more.

Yup, and she goes down for days too, and sometimes completely randomly!

Cloud

And another one for you, this one is a bit more recent (just 8 years ago):

StewartGriffin

recylingbin wrote: »

Wishing yourself happy birthday is a bit billy, is it not?

He's not 18, the website is.

Congrats Cloud. Hope you got your share of the profits.

johnruns

Shame its got so pc now

Ruu

An early 2002 snapshot, did not translate very well from the wayback machine but the links on the left hand side to the forums had grey behind them.

Poor Uncle Tom

Cloud wrote: »

And another one for you, this one is a bit more recent (just 8 years ago):

I thought it was still like that....

Xaracatz

Boards is great. My go-to website and long may it continue. Happy (belated) birthday.