On Jun 23, 2006, at 7:48 PM, Nathan Brindle wrote:

> Hmm, 20 years ago I had yet to run my first list, but I think in  
> '87 or '88 I did my first student list on INDYCMS.  It sort of  
> snowballed from there, although I was never one of the LISTSERV  
> postmasters at IUPUI.  (I did get questions from them from time to  
> time as I gained knowledge, though...)  Then I joined L-Soft in  
> 1994 and I'm still here...

Twenty years ago, I was looking forward to the following year when I  
would graduate college and move out of my parents' house. Both events  
happened on schedule.

My experience with LISTSERV began when I started to work as a part  
time computer consultant here at Temple University just after I  
graduated the first time. That was when we ran LISTSERV 1.8c (I  
believe) on an IBM 4381 with VM/CMS around 1986-87, if I remember  
correctly.

Temple's first LISTSERV postmaster and I were probably the only ones  
here who thought LISTSERV could bring value to the University  
community. At that time, only he and I saw the pedagogical benefits  
of LISTSERV. Our first postmaster worked for a contractor who ran our  
IBM mainframe. He left to start his own company. No one else with the  
contractor wanted to assume responsibility for LISTSERV nor did  
anyone who worked for Temple, so I volunteered to do it and I have  
been doing it ever since. We're now at 14.5 on a Red Hat Linux box  
with a few years running on Tru64 Unix (ugh) and Windows 2000 (minor  
ugh). Each new LISTSERV version gets better and better.

Eric, congratulations!