Timeline of Online Space:1999 Fandom

This timeline was created by David Welle. It was revised and updated by Jenny Lobb and Phil Merkel in July, 2001. 
* 01/93 Nick Sayer starts a mailing list at quack.sac.ca.us, which later (sometime before 07/95) becomes quack.kfu.com Over the years, series writer Johnny Byrne would drop by to share memories and converse about Space: 1999 and some of his other series.
* 10/93 Someone uploads several pictures to ftp.sunet.se, an FTP site in Sweden. This site still exists, eight years later having "watched" as the World Wide Web rose around it.
* 94-95? The Usenet group hactor.space-1999 is discussed on the email list. Steps are taken to revive this dead newsgroup. Now, it is still active to this date!
* 07/95 At SpaceCon XI, Jenny Lobb holds a session about online resources. At the time, these resources included the mailing list, the Swedish FTP site, Nick's webpage (which also exists to this day), a South African site, and one or two more. One site includes George Lee (Luckygeo)'s roster of online fans, which even then numbered well over 100 and a Space: 1999 FAQ. (Frequently Asked Questions List)
* 01/96 A few new sites, including Marcy Kulic's Cyber Museum and David Welle's Metaforms, begin forming. The Cyber Museum accepts submissions from many other Online Alphans, and soon grows larger than any other site.
* 1996 The Internet starts attracting more and more people, and new websites start popping up more frequently. The mailing list is a frequently used announcement area for new and enhanced websites, and will remain so for a long time. Another favorite topic is amusing episode similarities. Roberto Baldassari creates graphics for many of the sites, Catherine Bujold creates numerous digital montages, and dozens of others pitch in to helping fledgling webmasters further build their websites.
* 12/96 Ring Around the Moon -- an Internet "Webring" -- links together more than a dozen webpages (it later links upwards of 38) together. Also, the Cyber Museum becomes the first Space website with "1999" in its domain name: space1999.net
* 01/97 Robert Ruiz's Space: 1999 Cybrary opens. It will grow to be even larger than the Cyber Museum.
* 02/97 The mailing list is moved to buffnet.net, administered by Marcy Kulic, Marshall Poindexter, and myself. It is known as the Space: 1999 Internet Mailing List, or Online Alpha, and adds a digest and spam blocking.
* 1997 Various "Operations," international merchandise "runs," and campaigns are organized using the list for some of the announcements.
* 11/97 The "Episode by Episode" (ExE) discussion is initiated by Mateo Latosa.
* 04/98 Martin Willey's site, The Catacombs, opens up. These become one of the most comprehensive guides to the series, cast and crew, merchandise, and more.
* Early 98 alpha1999, an un-administered version of the main space1999 list, is formed.
* 11/98 After a full year, the "Episode by Episode" discussion is completed, going as strong as when it started. It has all been threaded and archived.
* 1998 Additional sites continue to be added, and by now or shortly after, languages include English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and Swedish.
* 08/99 The Space: 1999 Net forms out of several existing and new websites, including the Cyber Museum, Catacombs, Metaforms, two fan fiction sites, and more, using the existing space1999.net domain name. This has since expanded from 7-8 sites to 15 sites, though the original Cyber Museum component has since frozen development.
* 09/99 Breakaway: The Convention. Those mailing list members who don't get to go read con reports, some during the convention, more shortly after.
* 09/99 Ken Scott’s excellent Moonbase Alpha’s Space 1999 Home Page opens. It is a wonderful graphic’s intensive site with multimedia. Each episode is examined on the site in an entertaining and stunning way. Ken’s terrific graphics have found their way onto Space 1999 coffee mugs on EBAY!
* 9/27/99 The Gaybase Alpha mailing list forms.
* 01/00 The Cybrary shuts down most of its sections, but other sites continue to increase in number.
* 07/24/00 The Online Alpha mailing list, numbering 244 members, is moved to eGroups by Phil Merkel and Doug Bailey, adding polls, file repositories, chat(?), and recombining the membership of the space1999 and alpha1999 lists.
* 08/00 The Online Alpha Space 1999 Mailing List Archive website opens. It contains digests of the old list from 2/21/97 through 7/26/00.
* 09/1/00 Main Mission: 2000 takes place over three days in New York City’s Times Square. The convention featured many Space:1999 cast and crew including Catherine Schell’s first convention appearance as well as Keith Wilson, Kevin Conner, George Bellak and John Hug.
* 09/10/00 Main Mission: 2000 convention reports and photos begin appearing on all lists and major websites.
* 10/01/00 Roberto Baldissari creates a new set of blueprints to accompany his excellent Ultimate Eagle Blueprints and Eagle Cutaway poster. The subject this time is The Mark IX Hawk.
* 11/16/00 Online Alpha member Edward C suggests a new ExE (episode by episode) discussion. The difference is this one starts at the end of year two and works backwards to The Metamorph. When Year two completed the ExE decided to do season one starting with Breakaway so to be timed with the DVD releases.
* 11/20/00 A new computer game, Space: 1999 Defender of Moonbase Alpha begins development and is announced on the Online Alpha list. In it you can pilot an Eagle over Alpha. Another game Space: 1999 Monsters will follow
* 01/01 Phil Merkel’s Main Mission: 2000 convention videos become available for cost of materials and postage. They include over 16 hours of audio and video from the convention. The videos have their own page on the Space:1999 Catacombs website.
* 01/30/01 A&E/New Video release the first wave of Space 1999 DVD’s, which includes the first half of season one. This causes much discussion on the various lists. The discussion prompts the creation of the ITC_DVD email group.
* 04/03/01 Pioneer releases the first season of Space:1999 on DVD in Japan. This release has fewer extras than the US or UK editions and interesting cover art. Out of the three releases they are the most expensive and are now out of print.
* 04/30/01 Carlton releases Region 2 sets of Space 1999 DVD’s. These include four episodes per disk instead of three, more extras per set and the correct Space:1999 logo on their cover art. The debate rages on, on all related email lists.
* 05/25/01 Pioneer releases the second season of Space: 1999 on DVD. They are the first to produce second season disks but have not included the two part episode, The Bringers of Wonder.
* 06/01 Robert Wood’s new Space: 1999 book, “The Future is Fantastic” is released. It contains an excellent collection of interviews and quotes from all cast & crew.
* 06/11/01 Carlton releases the rest of the first season Space 1999 DVD’s. These include even more extras.
* 07/01/01 A page of the old Cybrary is still online with details on the Cybrary CD-ROM project.
* 07/27/01 SpaceCon: 2001 takes place in Tampa, Florida. It is a more fannish convention, which included guests Nick Tate and Barry Morse.
* 07/31/01 The next wave of A&E/New Video DVD are released finishing off the first season.
==References==
Category:Space:1999
Category:Chronology
*Online Space:1999 Fandom