History of TheSkybox With the Topic Scott started about Prodigy I thought it might be appropriate to give a little history of Skybox as I remember, being very involved. Like others here in the early 90’s I got a free copy of Prodigy online, I had no idea what it was and really didn’t get into the sports area after a lot of Gators had left for another site because Prodigy had started charging by usage. What I did find was a bunch of Notre Dame and Tennessee fans that were active and I related well with quite a few of them but not all. All in all it was pretty enjoyable and I found myself spending a lot of time on Prodigy. Meanwhile the Gator group had migrated to a List serve, in fact a couple had merged. Two of the main people were Ray Hines and Gus Garcia. In time they decided to move to a Web based Bulletin Board. What is now GatorCountry came into being. Unfortunately Gus died way to young on a vacation some number of years ago. Ray also got the domain TheSkybox.com and opened it with this message I joined GatorCountry and TheSkybox, however TheSkybox didn’t take off and Ray closed it. I still remain an active participant of GatorCountry to this day. At about this time, late 90’s Prodigy was failing and membership dwindled and closure was imminent. There was a hard core of us who remained and enjoyed dealing with us, many who are still here on TheSkybox today. Anyway we were in Atlanta visiting my Sister-In-Law, I think Thanksgiving week don’t remember for sure. I dropped a note to Ray telling him about Prodigy failing and wondering if he would ever consider reopening TheSkybox. To my surprise I got a quick response and he had already made it available and made me the Moderator. I was floored and pondered how to send out invites without posting it on Prodigy, didn’t think they would allow. I contacted some of the people I dealt with frequently on Prodigy and invited them. Terry, Tom, Corey, JoCo, Huskerman, Jeff Ramsey to mention a few. People started showing up. Turns out the Notre folks had a large mailing list. Next thing we knew a lot of people had joined and started topics like we had done on Podigy. Those of you that were on Prodigy no doubt remember there was a lot of conflict and I had been involved with a number, just ask gipper about some of our conversations . Also forums of this type have generally not been successful. The reason in my opinion is that on a forums for individual teams there are a lot of thought that hey we do everything right but all those other guys are bad guys. Looking down on other teams. So my feeling was that it would be unwise for me to be the only Moderator or for them all to be from the same fan base. So Ray gave me permission to pick some others. At that time Notre Dame was large on Prodigy and are obviously still large here so I approached Terry and he accepted. Tennessee also had a big base on Prodigy and I approached Tom. We became equal co Moderators. And of course remain so to this day. At one point Ray had a nice offer to sell the domain name but although he doesn’t come here much he was impressed as to how a diverse group of fans got along so well and obviously respected each other. Imagine that. ☺ Over the years we have aged together, going on 20 years, so he didn’t sell. Over time he turned over complete administration to Me, Terry and Tom. Our group has dwindled to a hard core of people and we don’t seem to get a lot of new members. I think a lot has to do with what I mentioned above that not everyone can communicate with other fan bases as they see so many of the others as bad guys. Regardless with the Prodigy topic started by Scott I thought it might be appropriate to give this little history. Terry, Tom and anyone else can chime in to add anything they like or to correct me. My hope is that we can stick together for some time yet and give the respect to each other that we expect ourselves. Remember as said above and what we are all about.
Somewhere around 20. If you click on the Memberlist icon above there in the header for the page and then chose a sort method using # of posts and descending you'll get a good idea of who is active. When I did that just now I was surprised to see that Chico Esquela is still ahead of Bobda in number of posts.
I wasn't on Tom's original invite list. Terry somehow dug me up, and threw me an invite a while after you guys started up here. I realized it was much better to surf the web from a browser than trough Prodigy's proprietary crap and dumped it before they died. Was glad to run into you guys again. I didn't frequent many of your boards on Prodigy. I was usually in a fight with some SWC fool who was living in the past and spent my energy fighting them.
I was pretty reluctant in making the move. Change is pretty difficult for me. I tried unsuccessfully to get Prodigy to keep Prodigy Classic which had the boards that we frequented. This went pretty high up the chain at IBM but Sears had more of a strangle hold on the decisions at that time than IBM did. Once there was no hope for classic, I made the jump. I kept my Prodigy account for a few years bur eventually dropped it. My step father still has his b17-pilot at prodigy dot net address. I liked what we had on the boards. I used software called Royston Utilities that allowed me to download the messages and read offline. Friends got less busy signals on my home phone. We did not get cell phones until around 1991
I too started on Prodigy and for those years and the first few years on Skybox I neglected to take time out and find the "island" that George refers to. There were many combatative moments and lots of people willing to engage that combat and start it up at a moments notice. My unwillingness to give in to hostile opinion led to a rep that saddles me here to this day even though I have mellowed and now try not to stir the pot so much...... even though I still hold firm in my opinions during debate. In any event it has been great over the years to see what other fan bases are thinking with regard to sports of all kinds and especially college football. My thanks goes out to those responsible for giving us this forum.
Tim...new avatar too big. Do you want to change it, fix it or have me crop it to a more acceptable size?
Ha ha ha....That avatar is so large I had to spend thirty minutes scrolling to the right on my Samsung galaxy. ...
Obviously I wasn't on Prodigy, and I don't remember how I found y'all....but aren't you glad I did hahahahaha! :lol:
kp, as a matter of fact I, and I think most others here, are glad you are around. My personal opinion is that I would like to hear more from you.
Good to know kp, I know you have taken some flack but stand up well. Prodigy could be unbelievable at times but it withered away.
I remember finding out about skybox from the main gator site at that time. I liked the idea that it advertised itself to be an island away from the flaming of other sport sites. And to its credit it was as advertised!! Well at that time there was Gonzo and Husker still gives me crap still for my Cane allegiance but I love him regardless. I'm not king of the internet in no way (life is too busy outside of cyberspace usually) but I always find myself visiting on a daily basis. Sports has taken a backseat as I have matured but each and everyone of you have become family to the point that I enjoy your opinions more than the teams that I follow..... I recently lost my foreman of 25 years, a fellow Cane fan, right hand man, person I counted on and at the end of the day a friend I could depend on. I have learned since his passing that it was not the sports we talked about on a daily basis that I miss but his incite and the ability to share something new with our team. Him being there sharing in my enjoyment is the main thing I miss most. Your personalities and opinions are as important to me, each with their own quirks and passions to the teams that you follow. Skybox has maintained itself as the island for sports lovers without the hassle but in truth has become a site where friends meet up..... Thank you for that ...