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Kevin, could you paint a picture for me? Of what Internet access was like in the mid nineties in Nelson? Um, very scarce. Um, it was dial up through an or, uh, company known as, uh, tap became known as Tasman Solutions. It started off as the planet dot org dot NZ Nelson Branch. Um and so they were my ISP my Internet service provider. Um, I've been with them right from the big, uh, September [00:00:30] 1995. I was their very first Windows 95 customer. And then, um, they after I got I got to know the person that ran it. And after a couple of months, he asked me, Would spectrum be interested in having a presence on the Internet? And just tell me what what is Spectrum Spectrum is the It was the, uh, social and support group for gay and bisexual men in Nelson. And [00:01:00] when was that established? No, Somewhere around 1990 1991. You somewhere around there? So the mid nineties, what kind of Internet sites were available for LGBTI rainbow communities? Uh, the ones that I could mainly find were all overseas. That basically American? Yeah. Um and then the vast majority of those were actually porn based or really so porn was an early adopter. [00:01:30] Oh, yes, it was there then. Yeah. And what about New Zealand sites? Very few and far between, Um, the NZ dot com had a through a had a, um, a small, uh, gay section which basically listed the groups available in the country. And that was it. We we we think nowadays, in 2018 of very, um, [00:02:00] rich media content websites. But back then, back 20 years ago in the 19 nineties, what kind of, um, sites were available in terms of text or images? Um, that was full of, uh, even movies and that on the porn sites and particularly they were there. Yes, everything was there, but, uh, you had to go digging for anything if you wanted it, But it was a lot of it was text based with photos and or diagrams and that which is [00:02:30] basically the same as the, um, what the Spectrum one was. And of course, this is, um, pre Google search engine. Very, very much so. It was even back in the days before, um, what is now known as spark came online with the extra Internet service that goes back even before that. So how did you find things back then? Um, the main ones we used back then were either the Yahoo search engine or, um, [00:03:00] yeah, there was another one. I'm just trying to think, like was another one. Yes, there were. There were several rather large search engines which came through. They actually came through the trawled the website quite regularly and in terms of finding LGBTI rainbow content. Um, how what? What kind of words did you use? Uh, I just usually put in, like, gay men usually. And yeah, came up with screeds [00:03:30] of results. And this is also a time, I guess when, uh, bulletin boards, um, were still around very, very active. Yes. Yeah, very, very active. And can you tell me about the bulletin boards? Um, yeah, there were. There were several, uh, they were usually in the section, Um, the in news groups, Um, the things like TASSGM. Um, [00:04:00] so that same sex gay men, uh, stories and pictures and all sorts of things like that were available through those groups and for somebody nowadays who might not know what a bulletin board was Can you describe what? What they were? Um it's basically a place where you wrote something or had a picture, and you posted it to the person who ran the board, and they posted it on your behalf and [00:04:30] made it available for everyone else to see. So when you were asked about, um, establishing a web presence for spectrum uh, what was the what? What What was the thought behind that? Um, Probably to give us a bit of, um, support. And, uh, so we could make our presence felt for any visitors and that to Nelson and that. And when did the website go live? Um, I can't remember if it was late 1995 or early [00:05:00] 1996. I'm probably going with the early 1996 option there because I was just becoming new to the Internet because back then it was all dial up. Um, the 33.6 K modem dial up had just been introduced, So that's how slow things were. And can you describe what dial up was because I mean, nowadays, people are just so kind of Internet connected. Um, yes. You basically went through the phone line. Uh, you actually had to have [00:05:30] a special modem in your computer, which converted the digital signal into from the computer into an analogue signal for the, uh, phone system. And then it was converted back at the other end, and yeah, and then the computer system worked as per the Internet and then converted it back to you. So So, watching something like a movie or even downloading images, I mean, that would have taken quite some time. A very, very long time. Yes. Um, you get [00:06:00] a Well, the 33.6 K is the speed at the time as 33.6 K bytes A a second, but you take a megabyte of information and that there was several minutes, and now you need several, um, megabytes will come down in a fraction of a second. So in terms of working out, what information should go up online about the spectrum group? [00:06:30] What were your thoughts? How did how did you gather information? Um, a lot of it was taken from what other people suggested, and that, and also from the newsletters and various other information that I could lay my hands on, uh, and I. I kept it all very very, um, text or oriented First because of the, uh, the speed issues. And so as the speed became more and more faster, [00:07:00] more, the Internet became more common. Um, I, I gradually introduced more and more, uh, graphics and photos and things. So do you think the spectrum website was one of the first, if not the first, uh, LGBTI Rainbow website in New Zealand? Um, I'm not sure if it was or not. Um, the gay Auckland Businessmen's Association. They had a web presence to, uh, around the same time, [00:07:30] Whether they beat us or not, I couldn't tell you, but still, it was quite it was quite at the forefront. Oh, yes, yes. It is still very early on in the piece. I think we might have even beaten the AIDS foundation online, but not by much. How did you programme the content into the website? Um, it was all done by, um manually, uh, typing out the HTML code. And then it was all the files were all uploaded individually by a separate [00:08:00] FTP programme. And so how did you learn programming? Um, a lot of reading of the Internet. Um, you know, I actually found that also, my IP was very, very helpful, too, with giving me information and making suggestions and that and there's been more than one, email. I've actually read directly off the server instead of going through my email account at home. So why was your ISP so keen on getting a kind of an LGBTI rainbow [00:08:30] presence? Um, I'm not overly sure he was. He was very much into sort of helping all sorts of other community groups and that sort of thing. Um, in fact, in 1999 I think it was when we had the national quilt display in Nelson. He, uh, they actually were one of the main sponsors for it, too. What kind of feedback did you get from people accessing the website in those early days? Um, we didn't get much direct feedback, but [00:09:00] we What we did get was positive. Um, we've had we actually had several visitors from overseas who found us through the website. We had a weekly drop in centre spectrum did and and the number of people that sort of came in and said they found it on the Web and everything. Yeah, it was good when you look back, Um, because the pages are now stored on the way back machine on the web archive. When you look back, what can you reflect on those pages? [00:09:30] Um, yeah, I. I can remember most of the sort of doing most of it. And that, and also when the with the newsletter and that we put that up on there as well, or the monthly newsletter went out on, too, And just more broadly reflecting back. Um, what do you think the Internet has done for LGBTI Rainbow Communities in the last 20 years? Um, it made the the presence. Being there has become much more acceptable or accessible more than anything [00:10:00] and then acceptable and sort of taking down a lot of the barriers. And that will help take down a lot of the barriers because back then, it was still very much in the days of, um, you go. We don't want anything to do with this sort of thing, whereas it's changed so much for the better. Now with treating everyone as equals.
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