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The TARDIS Databanks first existed in the late 1980s as a BBS, or bulletin board system. Back then, there was no real public access to the internet (and/or its precursors), so those of us who actually owned computers with modems (which was relatively rare back then) would connect to a BBS when we wanted to go "online."

A BBS was basically a home computer with a modem and special software that let it answer the phone when it rang, so people could connect (one at a time, unless you had a big budget and could afford two or more modems) and read and post messages on the discussion boards. In most cases, the messages stayed on that specific BBS, since few were on a larger network.

The Databanks let other Doctor Who fans, mostly from the area around Ithaca, NY, log in and discuss Doctor Who. I also had a selection of pictures and sound files people could download (some of which I have on this site in their original format!).

Back in the day, the TARDIS Databanks ran on an 8mhz (yes, eight whole megahertz) with a whopping 640K of RAM, a 20MB hard drive, and a 2400 baud modem. These days, my cell phone far outclasses that old PC. And, in fact, my phone has several of the sound files from the old BBS loaded on it as mp3 ringtones.

The TARDIS Databanks BBS ran for about a year, before I had to shut it down in September of 1989 after I graduated from high school and moved out of my parents home. At the time it was far too expensive for me to keep paying for my own phone, and the dorm where I was living didn't allow students to have their own phone lines in the room.

In January of 1996, Paul McGann was announced as the eighth Doctor to play in the Doctor Who telemovie which aired Tuesday May 14, 1996 on Fox. This was the first official Doctor Who to be produced since 1989, and the first made in the US, under joint control between Universal Television and the BBC, a project headed by Philip Segal.

After the news of the Fox movie was first announced, I got motivated to "regenerate" my old BBS and it went online in mid January, 1996, with a single page and a couple of pictures. Over time, I added to the site and it grew to over thirty pages, along with many images, sound files, and even a few video clips (not so easy back in the mid '90s),

Unfortunately, Fox passed on the opportunity to make new Doctor Who episodes, and so the TV went back into limbo, although the 8th Doctor continued his adventures in both the BBC Book novel line, as well as the Big Finish 8th Doctor audio adventures.

I continued to update the site, more and more sporadically, until the beginning of 2000, when I made my last update. The site continued to get traffic (in fact, it has consistently gotten the most traffic on every server it's lived on since I started it) so I kept it available for people to enjoy.

In 2005, nine years after the Fox TV movie, and sixteen years after the end of the original series, Doctor Who finally returned to the air in a new series starring Christopher Eccleston as the 9th Doctor. The new series lives up to the name of the original, and is a fantastic reinvention and continuation for the 21st century.

Finally, in March of 2006, I decided to take some time to go through the site and at least fix the broken html and dead links, as the site had become a little embarassing, In time, I hope to ad some new content, including pages for the 9th and 10th Doctors. This is something I do in my spare time, but as the owner of two businesses (and co-owner of at least one more this year), I'm not making any promises as to how often the site will be updated.

If you want to help me justify the expense of hosting this site, and the bandwidth, you could be kind and click on the banner ads, but there's no obligation of course. :)

This page was originally created on Saturday, January 13, 1996