Technology innovations
From Fan History Wiki
Technology innovations have changed the face of fan fiction.
Some of the earliest fanzine were mimeographed. As technology improved, this form of duplicating fanzines would cease as less costly ways of producing them because available. By 1985, personal computers, aided by their word processing programs, started to have an impact on the publication of fanzines. Computers, along with the growth of copying services, led to a growth in the number of fanzines and created a situation where more fen could produce their own, high quality fanzines. (Langley)
By 1982, fan fiction had started to take to the Internet with Usenet groups. The first mailing lists would appear by 1985. One of the earliest fan fiction oriented mailing lists was from the comic book fan fiction community.
As FTP and gopher entered the picture, fans played with them, created a number of early on-line fan fiction archives. These sites would eventually die or be replaced with sites using the hypertext transfer protocol.
A number of technology innovations can be traced to university activities, improvements and upgrades to their own systems. As a university became wired, they developed systems like VAX which allowed for communications on a university server and with other university servers. Fan fiction communities formed on these types of systems. Some of the earliest to be found were Star Trek, Star Wars, Blake's 7, Doctor Who and Transformers.
Always be careful regarding domain name renewal. Around 2001, SlashCity lost one of their domains due to some one buying their domain after it expired. The situation was not resolved until it had gone to arbitration through ICANN.
By 2002, DVDs began playing an increasingly important role in fandom. They are revitalizing old fandoms by allowing new fans to see the source material for the first time. Created in 1994, they now provide 60% of studio receipts. (USA Today)
[edit] Sources
- A.B. Dick Multigraphics. About AB Dick. AB Dick Multigraphics. Bp http://www.abdick.com/about_abd/aboutabd.htm
