Before the age of coaster websites.

Do you remember before coaster websites came out, that you didnt know to much about other parks and the coasters they had? I remember up until maybe about 5 years ago, I really only knew about my homepark and the ones that I visited. I had no knowledge of parks like CP, SFMM, SFGADv, etc, until the web gave me alot of knowledge of what goes on at those parks and what they have to offer. Even better is finding out for the first time since coastersites came out is the small parks that provide thrills that someone say half way across the country would have never known about. Heck, I remember when I was in highschool, that maybe I heard about CP like once or twice and didnt really care. All I cared about was Marriotts Great America and now Six Flags Great America. Today, its like I feel that I have been to CP (but I really havent) with all of the information and pics. The internet is a great thing!!!!!!

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""Coaster riding is a disease and SFGAm is the cure!!!!!!!""

Yeah, The internet really got me into SFMM and a lot of other parks out there.
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"There's no air in space."
"There's an Air & Space Museum."

I remember when the only thing that taught me of other parks was the Discovery Channel That taught me about, what, 10 coasters. (Yet it still sparked my interest) Now we're hearing about coasters in Germany and Japan going up!

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"We are no longer the knights who say Ni! We are now the knights who say eckyeckyeckyeckypakungloopoingengzourjin." "Ni"

I thought all Six Flags Parks were the same. I also didn't know what was after Magnum's 2nd Hill, I never could see it.

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You are the Weakest Link, Goodbye.

Before the web took off, the only real internet outlet for coaster info was RRC. Before the internet, enthusiasts had to rely on trade pubs and club newsletters.

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Scott W. Short
scott@midwestcoastercentral.com
http://www.midwestcoastercentral.com

For Web sites, I credit World of Coasters (formerly under the domain rollercoaster.com) as being a start. The funny thing is, it was never actually updated much, even in its early days.

rec.roller-coaster on Usenet was an early attraction for me, but it got old quickly because there was so much noise there, and it was hard to sort through it all. Thank God for moderated forums. ;)

Now I think there are three major sites/communities, with lots of smaller park-specific sites that we can all identify with for the parks we live closest to.

It has been a wild ride. I couldn't believe how popular GTTP got, though I credit much of that to the big blue and silver thing they built.

I only wish that there was a site with a similar sense of community out there for volleyball.

Hmmmm...

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Jeff
Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com

I read about coasters and parks in books. Also shows on TLC, DISCOVERY, news stations sometimes.

The only bad thing has been the noise(not here), and some people out there that are on the net that already knew about everything anyways, and the opinions and all the rumors that sometimes I don't have the tolerence for sometimes(sometimes it's better to just relax it out and enjoy things without thinking too much). The rcdb has been my favorite, though if you just want to see the coasters, it was one of the first that I saw, Thrillride used to be good, this is about it for me now besides "info" driven sites, like "travel planners" and such, and the maps on the net are fun sometimes, too.......

Three major communities exist (What are they? ThrillRide, CoasterBuzz and ?)- but there are sites out there just as good that havent been discovered yet!

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Jephry said:
"I thought all Six Flags Parks were the same.

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I used to think that too! Literally, I thought they were exactly the same.

The net has been key to renewing my interest. When I was a kid, I resorted to mailing local chambers of commerce, then mailing parks for press kits. I actually got some cool press pics of coasters that way. It was time consuming though.

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Decisions determine destiny; Destiny determines decisions.

Funny, Six Flags parks ARE almost all the same!

(NOTE: this post was in no way intended to shut down this topic or develop a heated Six Flags argument, it is just a little joke, don't take it too seriously)

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Shivering Timbers- for the love of Michigan's Adventure, just ride it.

I remember looking on Yahoo back in 1995 & 1996 and there was hardly any information at all. When you typed in rollercoasters you received a handful of sites. The best ones were Rollercoaster.com and a ftp site that was all pictures "roman something" It was loaded with all sorts of coaster pictures, it's gone now, but it was a great site.

I think everyone would be lost without the Internet and all of it's knowledge it gives us today. I know I would. RRC was the only news info site alive back in the day. I remember when I found Thrillride WOW what a great site.

This is by far the greatest coaster site/portal ever designed.

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BMCOASTER

bmcoaster@wi.rr.com

I only went to GTTP because Jeff had my name, that was years ago, even before CP place. I would read his editorials on the coasters almost everyday

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Best Coaster: Millennium Force
Worst Coaster: Project Stealth