StarTTY Shutting Down?
January 1st, 2008 by Benj Edwards
[Edit – 04/15/2008: I just received an email from Dorian saying that StarTTY is staying up for the foreseeable future. Thanks for your support. ]
I recently received sad news from the creator of StarTTY, an innovative telnet service that VC&G covered back in January 2007. Dorian Garson is shutting down the service on January 30th, 2008 unless he can find financial support to keep it going.
I’m not a regular user of the service myself, but I tried it and it was really neat. If any of you out there want to see this unique information service for old computers/terminals continue, then you should get in touch with Garson soon. I’ve reproduced Garson’s original email below.
Hi Guys,
It’s been real fun, but I’m going to have to shut down StarTTY. January 30 will be the last day.
I’ve got other bills to pay. Spending the dough to keep the site running for just a few users doesn’t make much sense.
UNLESS…
If some of you want to chip in to keep it going, I’m willing to give it a shot.
Reply to this email and let me know what you think you’d pay per month to keep StarTTY running. If I get enough responses I’ll set up a PayPal link and let you guys take over the funding.
Hoping for the best but preparing for the worst,
-Dorian
January 2nd, 2008 at 5:38 am
StarTTY is cool and all, but free desktop widgets have this thing whipped.
January 8th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
Not for old computers, though. Most of the machines targeted can’t run a desktop of any kind.
January 8th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
What sort of support would be needed to keep the service running? If you just need a machine room in which to house your server and connect to the network, I might be able to find you a sponsor. You’d have to administer the machine remotely, but I could help out with the occasional physical poke at the box. The link on this comment is a mail form that can be used to contact me.
January 29th, 2008 at 3:56 am
I’d be willing to make a small monthly contribution to help with the costs of running your site. I’m sure there are others out there who would help out also. You need a Paypal link on your website.
April 15th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
I found a way to keep it running “for free” for a while by combining hosting with another site. I had no idea it had such a following – thanks everyone for the offers to help!
-Dorian Garson
September 11th, 2017 at 8:38 am
Hey Dorian !, StartTTY was a favorite project I’ve followed and it’s sad to see it died, I’m willing to help bring it back to life if you are interested and if there are others that want to use it still :), if so please let me know and we can have a quick chat about it 🙂
November 16th, 2018 at 8:37 am
Update!
I’ve gotten in touch with Dorian and he was a very friendly and amazing person!
he was very eager to share the codebase and tips on what was difficult and what was not.
My plans for now is to rewrite the project and modernize it and bring it back to life as a side project 🙂
if you’re interested simply follow starttty.net 🙂
November 16th, 2018 at 8:38 am
^edit: http://startty.net, put an extra t there by accident 😉
August 31st, 2019 at 9:57 am
Is anyone still working on the StarTTY revival? Any interest in seeing it come back?
November 6th, 2023 at 8:14 am
Hi,
Is there any up to date news on StarTTY.com and it’s long rumoured revival?
I have a bunch of vintage machines here all begging to be connected and used!
Thanks
Mike