He was around this weekend.

Thanks, that's good to know.

pham, I don't suppose I can trouble you to try the link? I'm hoping it's a weird firewall thing since I'm in the office.

Please note that is a "v" (as in Violin) not a "y".

There must be some issue with his website provider. I get this notification when trying to access....

Thanks for checking, Joel. I'm getting that same message.

Please note that is a "v" (as in Violin) not a "y".

I just tried slideruleera.net, and got a message that the account is suspended. WHOIS shows that the domain registration goes through Jan. 19, 2023.

SlideRuleEra closed the account very recently. I am sad to see it go.

Quote (SlideRuleEra)

On another note, after 17 years and much consideration I decided to end my website, SlideRuleEra.net. Today is the first day that it appears to be "gone". Thank you for your contributions to it over the years.

It would be great if Eng-Tips could maintain it in the future as it contained a lot of valuable information which is not readily accessed on the internet.

Here's the last snapshot on the wayback machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20221020140935/http://...

Unfortunately, it doesn't archive PDFs.

Ian Riley, PE, SE
Professional Engineer (ME, NH, VT, CT, MA, FL, CO) Structural Engineer (IL, HI)

Quote (BAretired (Structural))

SlideRuleEra closed the account very recently.

Rats. That's really unfortunate.

Teh, thanks for the waybackmachine link. I was at least able to see what SlideRule had out there. Also, I was able to still access at least one of the pdfs.

The reason for this search is I'm going to be adding some equipment to an existing floor. Built approximately in the mid-90's, it's a 3" total thickness concrete on metal deck. I'm trying to hunt down info for it. Right now, all I have is a massive point cloud to measure from. Based on what I'm seeing in the measurements, it doesn't match any profile that Vulcraft currently has. See the snip below for the horizontal dims. Vertically, depending on which points I pick, I get anywhere from 1.2" to 1.37". If anyone has any suggestions for where I could find info on this, I would be very grateful.

Please note that is a "v" (as in Violin) not a "y".

Is it possible it's just form deck? That's what it kind of looks like.

I'm assuming it's non-composite. I'd still like to hunt down the load table for it, however.

Please note that is a "v" (as in Violin) not a "y".

try reaching out to SDI, I've seen mention in previous posts about them being able to provide some historic information upon request: Link

Quote:

There must be some issue with his website provider. I get this notification when trying to access....

I suspect the next round of "The Twitter Files" will explain why he was shut down.

JK, of course.

Well that's super lame.

SlideRuleEra - any chance you could bundle you website's HTML files and your uploaded docs into a ZIP file that could be downloaded and viewed locally?

The Wayback Machine has tons of copies of the website, and therefore lots of possible PDFs captured, such as this one https://web.archive.org/web/20220130142349/http://... which is not captured in the most recent snapshot.

This page seems to have some PDFs archived, as least, the first couple of links https://web.archive.org/web/20190518213632/http://... Others seem to have never been captured

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies forum1529: Translation Assistance for Engineers Entire Forum list http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm

"The rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated", but after 17 years made a considered decision that it was time to shut down the website. As BAretired mentioned, this took place in mid-December (I informed BA and a couple of other members at that time). The web hosting 2-year contract was up for renewal and decided to let it go.

winelandv - Using the Wayback Machine, if you can determine which document likely has the info you need, I'll be happy to upload it here.

CrabbyT - Considered doing something like that and made an estimate of the total size of files on the website... stopped counting when it passed 3 gigabytes. Will take another look.

SlideRuleEra,

Thanks for reaching out. Unfortunately, it appears that steel decking was under-represented on your site. I was able to grab the pdf for the "ICBO Report - Robertson Steel Floor and Roof Deck (1980)", but the profile I have didn't match any of the Robertson profiles. I have an email out to the SDI and hopefully they will be able to find something.

Thanks for hosting that site for as long as you did - it has been very helpful to me at various points in the last 12 years.

Please note that is a "v" (as in Violin) not a "y".

Thanks here as well SRE. The end of an era, even if a small corner of the internet, it was one of the most useful ones.

Thank you winelandv and Lo. Seeing engineers actually use info from the website has been both a pleasure and interesting. Did not expect that in the beginning.

Thank you from me as well SRE! have gained a good bit of personal knowledge from many of the references that you made available, especially the slide rule documents.

@SRE: we need to keep your thing going. I've got some ideas for folks that might be willing to take it on. Would it be possible for you to share the previously hosted files in a bundled manner, either with me or someone else here who could pass them along? I could pretty easily provide you with some Dropbox space in which to place everything. We'll set this up in a way that pays homage to your original effort.

Quote (TehMightyEngineer)

Here's the last snapshot on the wayback machine:

First JAE resurfaces and now TME? It's raining legends here this week!

Quote (KootK)

I could pretty easily provide you with some Dropbox space in which to place everything.

I have about 950GB free in my OneDrive at the moment, and it's not filling up that fast. I'd be happy to store it for a bit while something more public is set up.

SRE - to reiterate what others have said: thank you very much for your presence here on this forum and for hosting your website for so many years. You've provided an invaluable service to this community that we all appreciate, both as the unofficial forum librarian and as an incredibly deep resource of engineering knowledge.

Quote (First JAE resurfaces and now TME? It's raining legends here this week!)

No Ron, yet...

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

Quote (I have about 950GB free in my OneDrive at the moment, and it's not filling up that fast. I'd be happy to store it for a bit while something more public is set up.)

GB?... nearly all my drives are TBs. Due to recent problems, all my portable drives are no longer connected to my machine, except during backup.

My son has a website and we may be able to use his servers, too. I often use his website to transfer several GB files to clients. I send the files to him and he creates a link on his server for the client to download from.

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

SlideRuleEra -

I think your accumulation of historical engineering design documents is an irreplaceable asset.

I would be willing to help out in preserving these documents. I can help fund a pool of money to keep the documents stored somewhere; or help out in any other way if needed.

-Joel

SRE,

Why not set up a Gofund me page to pay for the website at least for another year or so and then see how to maintain it later?

Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.

If maintaining SRE's website is a matter of cost, I'm up for a contribution too.

To be fair he is SlideRuleEra. Keeping 3GB on in a room full of spinning tapes reels gets damn expensive!

I'm here to chime in that I've used his website countless times. I've even sent junior engineers at my office there for historical info.

Let me know what I need to do to help, whether it's donate time or money, to keep it running. I'm down for whatever.

Quote (KootK)

I could pretty easily provide you with some Dropbox space in which to place everything

Quote (phamENG)

I have about 950GB free in my OneDrive at the moment

I have an unopened 2T external drive (thanks to dik's thread) that I'm ready to physically mail to SRE, but these are better 21st century solutions.

I'm really glad so many have stated their desire to keep SRE.net up and running (in some form). It really is a great resource. And like all great resources, you don't know you need it until you need it (and that's when you really need it). Count me in as one of those willing to help defray costs to keep it alive.

Unrelated to the above, I received a reply from Bob Paul at SDI:

Quote (Robert C. Paul, PE Managing Director SDI)

I am not aware of any steel deck manufacturer that produced a profile that matches these dimensions. It may be an exposed roofing/siding profile that was used to form a concrete slab. Hopefully, it’s a reinforced concrete slab and that will determine the capacity of the slab, not the deck.

Alas.

Please note that is a "v" (as in Violin) not a "y".

@ SlideRuleEra
thank you very much for your "valuable presence" here on this forum and for hosting your website
Iam sure you well got rewarded in this life and in the LASTING LIFE.

Thank you so much... I am overwhelmed at the support and sentiment shown. Did not expect that what started out as a modest hobby would turn out to be so useful to so many people. I'll reevaluate what to do next. Will likely turn over the .pdfs for someone else to go forward. Gathering everything together will take some time (at least weeks). Over time, I just added to the website without ever reorganizing or consolidating it. Files are scatter everywhere, at least they are all on one drive.

Just for info, the reason I took down the site is not about money, health, etc. The site was hopelessly outdated and I do not have the webmaster skills to update it... and of course, there is no more room at home for human909's bulky tape drives, and it is getting harder and harder to find replacement vacuum tubes for my computer.

Many thanks, again. I'll be back in touch on this subject when I get the files together.

You will do the right thing, SRE. You always have. If you find a good supplier for vacuum tubes, I'm in the market. Somehow, I sense that Mrs. SRE is involved here, but that is only based on the pressure I am on at home to clean up my 'junk'.

@SRE: A few "possibles" for the future home of this information:

1) Have Eng-Tips host it if your relationship with management is amenable to that. It would be a service to the forum and, in a small way, help to drive site traffic. This would be my first choice.

2) Celt83 has a website that is coming together nicely and is substantially in the vein of what I'd once hoped KootWare would be: The Structural Toolbox. Perhaps, with some financial support, we could persuade Celt83 to add the SRE stuff to the existing infrastructure of his website. Again, this would benefit our community and help to steer traffic towards the excellent online tools that Celt83 has been developing.

3) Agent666 also has a web presence that might be used similar to Celt83's: Engineers Vs Sheep.

For years now, I've foreseen this eventuality and meant to reach out to you to see if you might want me to succeed you in your endeavor. I'm kind of the world repository of historical structural engineering publications in my own right so there would be synergy there. I'd still be willing to do this if it were necessary but, at present, I'd be pleased to see this land at one of the three options above or something similar.

Assuming there isn't any copyright issues, I would be willing to host the materials on some subsection of my site as well.

Another useful place to add it would be to this github repository https://github.com/open-struct-engineer (assuming the repo owners are cool with that). If its on Github its very likely to remain available for a long time, moreso than any 'private' website.

-JA
try Calcs.app and let me know what you think

Github won't be a good fit the group is a free account that comes with some access and content restrictions, I've also been considering shutting the group down as it never really got any traction and my free time outside of work is significantly diminished so I plan to focus on just the Toolbox moving forward.

If there are no copyright issue, I think anyone of our websites would probably be a better fit.

SRE's files.

Quote (Celt83)

Github won't be a good fit...

Rats, I was willing to bet on the longevity of Microsoft over you or me, atleast as a publicly-accessible backup location for them.

-JA
try Calcs.app and let me know what you think

Yeah there is a soft limit of 1 gb on repositories and 25 mb per file (you can go over this with there large file storage but I have not done any research into that) bandwidth looks limited to 1 gb. Bandwidth usage would be a nice metric to get from SRE if they are able to share that to help budget for any possible additional hosting costs.

With regard to longevity, I feel that the answer to that is to have the files stored -- if not hosted -- in multiple places for redundancy. For the better part of a decade, I've harbored an unfinished ToDo item that was: download all of SRE's stuff and file it someplace. I think that, now, I would actually do that. And I'm sure that I'm not the only one.

In my mind, the cost of hosting would be one of the things that would favor storing the files here at Eng-Tips. I'd have to think that would be a drop in the bucket of the data storage overhead already incurred here.

hokie66- You are spot on about Ms. SRE's ideas on "junk"... and I agree with her. We don't need two dozen working, restored antique vacuum tube radios (a long time hobby). Goal is to get the number down between 12 to 15.
On the other hand, she has always supported my website efforts and ET participation... "you never know how many people you are influencing for the better".

KootK - Excellent ideas, I have time to sort out the next step while getting the files (3.5" floppys) DoubleStud showed into neat stacks.

ggcdn & Celt83 - You are so right about copyright. About 15 years ago I heard from the Portland Cement Association about posting my scans of their 1930's (active) copyrighted publications. To make a long story short, the incident ended well for both PCA and me. Decided to start a DIY education on fundamentals of USA copyright law. I maintain an obscure FAQ in the History Forum: "US Copyright Law Basics for Printed Publications". In fact it is time for my annual update of that FAQ with start of a new year... 1927 publications entered the public domain on January 1. To the best of my knowledge, all posting on my website were "clean".

KootK raises the very important point of longevity.  With computer-based files, extinction is a mere button press away, so (as he says) duplication is an important component of longevity.  This can be tricky to achieve with information that changes frequently, less so with material that, like SRE's, is relatively static.

Every good engineer must have a very tolerant spouse, or none at all.

Agree - SRE's site has been very useful, I hope the information finds a good home.

SRE - let me know - you know my email address - about the tube radios. I have a fraternity brother who is, well, hooked on collecting them. Cheers

Double Stud.

I actually had a conversation recently with an Engineer in their 20's who really didn't know what the floppy disc symbol was for the save icon.

How did we manage to exist using things which only stored 1.44 MB??

Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.

As far as a home for the docs, how about archive.org?

Edit: link to building technology collection on archive.org:

https://archive.org/details/buildingtechnologyheri...

Quote (How did we manage to exist using things which only stored 1.44 MB??)

or 180K? and there may have been smaller ones.

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

When I started using storage devices the 5 1/4" truly "floppy" discs were being phased out as they could only hold 740Kb I think. And there was something about some of them being double sided IIRC.

But when you bought a program it used to come with a small mountain of 3 1/2" floppys which you needed to insert IN THE RIGHT ORDER or hell and damnation was wrought upon your PC.

Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.

The first frame program I wrote was able to run in 64K of RAM, by swapping to floppies... that was a time...

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

Just point us to the ITS Machine you have stored in the basement

@SRE: I do hope we can continue making available your wonderful collection. I've been specializing in antiquated, often historic, structures for over 20 years, and would not have been able to do my job without your invaluable information. I probably have the majority of your files saved from my own past project needs. I'd be happy to contribute all that I can once we can all find a way to continue your "legacy". I know I'm not alone in thanking you for providing your archived collections to our engineering community.

OCellini - Many thanks. The process or rounding up the appropriate .pdfs is well underway and going faster than I thought it would. I have all of them, a complication is that mixed in with the posted .pdfs are 17 years worth of .pdfs and other files that I would not post for various reason. Have to take those out.

Also, have a plan for making the .pdfs available to everyone, but no index or other organization. Someone else will have to do that, and can do it far better than I could.

@SRE - I'd would like to add my thanks as well for: 1)hosting a great website and providing us with a lot of valuable information. Especially the ancient steel manual, which come in handy on a regular basis. 2) providing us with sound advice and guidance.

Thank you, bridgebuster. You were the first ET member to offer files to post on the website. Two out of copyright books on bridge design. PDF's of both will be included in the forthcoming package of website content.

I'm a month late to the discussion, but I too would like to thank SlideRuleEra for the website hosting historical information on his wonderful website. The gathered collection provided information that I otherwise could never find and was always extremely useful and interesting and I'm very thankful that SlideRuleEra did all that work for our benefit. I honestly will miss that website as it inspired me to learn how to use a proper slide rule (I ended up buying an old teaching slide rule and have it mounted in the office, all due to his website's inspiration). I hope that those gathered pdfs can be provided and hosted in the future as noted in the above post. Thank you for all your help SlideRuleEra, both here in the forum and all the hosted information on the website.

Quote (SlideRuleEra)

OCellini - Many thanks. The process or rounding up the appropriate .pdfs is well underway and going faster than I thought it would. I have all of them, a complication is that mixed in with the posted .pdfs are 17 years worth of .pdfs and other files that I would not post for various reason. Have to take those out.

Also, have a plan for making the .pdfs available to everyone, but no index or other organization. Someone else will have to do that, and can do it far better than I could

Does it help the sorting effort to see what was previously posted on the site if the site format files have been lost? This is what the site looked like towards the end of last year. I have also used the site many times and have always appreciated it.
https://web.archive.org/web/20221020140935/http://...

I'm also late to this thread but wanted to share this photo:


It is an 8' long slide rule that was used by a local high school math teacher. He gave it to me when he had to clean out his house and move to a nursing home.
We recently mounted it in our office and it is quite the conversation piece!

LOL, I have something like that, except that I'm the one that used it, but nowhere near where I have to live in a nursing home

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies forum1529: Translation Assistance for Engineers Entire Forum list http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm

Quote (SlideRuleEra)

Thank you, bridgebuster. You were the first ET member to offer files to post on the website. Two out of copyright books on bridge design. PDF's of both will be included in the forthcoming package of website content.

Hello!-Is there any update to the package of content from the SlideRuleEra.net website? The information on this website was extremely valuable and has been sorely missed since it was discontinued this year, but thank you for the many years of hosting the website previously!

Thank you, JONDSWARTZ. No, have not posted the info... events took an unexpected turn a few months ago. The Homeowner's Association where I live asked me to shepherd assorted community infrastructure projects thru design / construction. So, unretired my PE license and have been involved with these.

Just wanted to say I’ve found SREs website useful in the past and hope a new incarnation comes about!

FYI, I've started creating a list of historical references that were external links rather than hosted PDFs (eg, links to archive.org documents). So far I've added Building Codes and Steel Manuals.

I also added a few that weren't on SRE's site, like NBC, historical state codes, etc.

Some of the links may be broken, but many are working. The links to Google Books dont work for me, but I'm not sure if that's because I'm not American.

The list is available here

-JA (working on Calcs.app)

Well, crap!!!
I didn't realize SlideRuleEra's site was down.

SRE,
Thanks so much for everything you have contributed!!!
I downloaded many valuable publications from your website!!!
Now, if I can just remember where I saved them.....

Sorry for reviving an old thread, but just now realizing that slideruleera.net is no more.

SRE and whomever wrote that ASCE 7 wind loading excel program are the greatest engineers of our generation in my opinion. Long live SRE!

Sliderulera, would you be able to post a zip file of the contents of your website? Some of the documents I would frequent your site for are not on the backup site.

Wind loading program is probably Alex Tomanovich. Look at excelcals.com or something vaguely similar.
https://www.excelcalcs.com/publicprofile/2056

Slide rule is going to ask what you're after specifically, I'd wager, so they can upload it.

A list of the files, now that would be something, just an index of the stuff. Or inventory. Whatever.

coastal43 - I had planned to make the website content available, but unexpected events have changed that. Site held several gigabytes; a bigger job than I expected. If you need certain documents I'll try to post them... per lexpatrie's prediction.

The link to the WayBackMachine image is as good an index as I ever had. Website was started about 2005 just to see if I could do it (my stepdaughter gave me a half hour of basic instructions on how to proceed). That's why it had such a quirky look. Had no clue that the outdated info would actually be of use. In 2005 there were few websites with that type content, many more these days.

Omar Blodgett probably never thought he would have such a following either.

I apologize, I wrote that before reading everything and thought I updated my original post. It was a document for the Bethlehem Steel Sheet Pile, the link no longer appears to work on the archive link. It's saved me a few times identifying sections down in Baltimore Harbor in the past. Thanks for hosting the site for all these years.

coastal43 - The attached Bethlehem Steel Sheet Pile file is probably what you are looking for.

• https://files.engineering.com/getfile.aspx?folder=ca8d8477-fd29-4a26-b4bd-0

Thank you, one hell of a resource.

Quote (SRE)

I had planned to make the website content available, but unexpected events have changed that. Site held several gigabytes; a bigger job than I expected.

That's a bit unnerving given the amount of time that's elapsed on this thread (13 months) and how important your site obviously is to the community here.

Here's one, temporary solution that I would be willing to help with:

1) My Dropbox for business account currently has 6TB of empty space on it.

2) I could create a sub-account to my Dropbox account for your use. No one but you could access it without your permission (not even me I believe).

3) You upload your file set to the Dropbox space via synch or direct upload as you see fit.

4) You distribute the files as you see fit or have me do it on you behalf following whatever protocol you specify.

5) In the future, perhaps you have someone else host your stuff on their web page per your wishes.

This way, at least:

a) Members of our community can get the information that they seek one way or another and;

b) Your creation doesn't have to die/retire with you should you get hit by a bus or decide to focus on your putting game.

c) This wouldn't cost either of us anything in the short to near term.

KootK - That is an interesting way of making the info available. Much of the problem is at my end (remember this was a casual hobby, not a job). The documents were accumulated and posted slowly over 17 years with no consideration for the future; there is no real organization of these files on my hard drive. Even the names I gave the files (mostly .pdf) are somewhat random, making it a time consuming task to open each one, see what it concerns, then rename / organize them into a useful filing system.

What I MAY be able to do, over time, is compile a limited group of the "best" documents and turn them over to you or someone else to take it from there. There are other sources (say, AISC, Internet Archive, commercial websites, etc.) for a surprising number of files that I originally scanned and posted. (For example, AISC's website offers the historical reference "A.I.S.C. Iron and Steel Beams 1873 to 1952"... they use my unaltered scan of the entire book, and that is fine.)

SlideRuleEra:

Calibri may be helpful in your effort to organize the files: Link

Thanks, Celt83, I take a look at Calibri.

Assuming the site still exists in some fashion there are several plugins available for chrome (and chrome based) browsers that will scrape and download all files on a website. That might take some of the burden off of SRE, or just allow folks to hoard it all.

SlideRuleEra

Would you be willing to create a Google account, upload those files into Google Drive, and share it with the public?

Google Drive gives 15GB of space for free, you can access it through your web browser, and all you'd really need to do is drag/drop some files and let em upload.

Maybe someone else would be willing to pick up the torch if they had the files.

Unfortunately, I don't have the files. If SRE needs more than 15 GB of Drive Space, I can give a link to my business Google Drive, which has like 3 TB+ space. Will keep it up as long as I'm in business, which is hopefully 10+ years. If anyone has the files, I can assign that person as editor, and anyone else with the link can download the stuff.

Edit: Just saw that KootK offered this as well, should've read that first

I'll be honest, a community google sheets could be used to determine contents of each file. I'd rather have a unorganized wealth of knowledge over potentially losing access to all of it.

Quote (SRE)

The documents were accumulated and posted slowly over 17 years with no consideration for the future; there is no real organization of these files on my hard drive. Even the names I gave the files (mostly .pdf) are somewhat random, making it a time consuming task to open each one, see what it concerns, then rename / organize them into a useful filing system.

I'd be happy to relieve you of that burden as well if you'll have it.

Just synch the files to my Dropbox as they are, where they are. I'm willing to sift through them one at a time to organize them.

I imagine a process like this:

1) I use the existing echoes of your website to work out the document list to the best of my ability.

2) I open the documents one at a time if there's no better way and match the files to the list.

3) I create a document list in Word, Excel, or whatever where each document is listed with a hyperlink to it's Dropbox location.

4) I post a Dropbox link to the document list, titled "SRE's Legacy" in my signature here until we find a permanent home for the reincarnation of your website.

Just say yes, to me or someone, and we'll get this done somehow.

Given the Spartan setup of your website, this solution wouldn't even be much of a functional compromise I feel.

Thanks to all for the suggestions.

CrabbyT - You have come up with something I should be able to do, not right of way but soon. I'll get started on uploading to Google Drive and post back here when all is ready.

Please understand, that I will be making the files available for download for a short time. I am delighted to provide the files but will leave it up to someone else to organize and host them. I'm out of the web hosting business, never got any better than when I started, but had a lot of fun with it for 17 years.

Whoever takes on this project is in for a really interesting time. I would hear from engineers and others all over the world, with requests to include website items in forthcoming engineering books, submitting documents for possible inclusion on the website (a retired engineer I never met mailed me two large boxes of his old engineering book for free - refused to accept my reimbursement for postage), even a part time (paid) job offer from Professional Publications, Inc. to do behind-the-scenes technical editing of some of their first-line books (I took that offer, resulting in some eyeopening results... for them).

This would be amazing. I think I bookmarked your website a week into the job 15 years ago.

Just an invaluable amount of resources, many of which do not exist literally anywhere else.

Don't worry about organization or number of files or size. I think I speak for almost everyone that those things do not matter even in the slightest. We are all oozing with cloud storage space.

Let it all upload in the background, share a link, and the community can take it from there.

SlideRule - I'm grateful for all the work you put into your site over the years. It's provided a lot of value to our community, and I don't think there's anyone else out there with a repository like yours. Thank you for considering my suggestion. Been a while since I built a website, but I'd be willing to put something together.

@CrabbyT: build it up to a level on par with where SRE has left off and I'll contribute $200CAD to help offset your startup costs.

I know, $200 is nothing from an incentivization perspective. I mean it to be evidence of solidarity.

If a website is on the table, I'd be willing to contribute to a fund to help host the website ad-free. I use Wix but it's a bit expensive. I wouldn't really suggest building a website out of html and css these days; it's doable (and fun), but there are easy website builders out there.

CrabbyT I'd be happy to help both with the website set up and financially. I also recruited a friend who does some web development and he's open to helping.

SlideRuleEra Do you still have the web domain, and would you be open to us resurrecting the site on that domain?

I've downloaded some of the references locally throughout the years, I'm sure many others have some as well. If we get a site started I think we could start repopulating the website until SlideRuleEra has a chance to get the files together

skired - No, when the web hosting contract expired I closed the website and did not renew anything.

CrabbyT will be able to start over fresh, which I expect is the best way to do this.

KootK - I can definitely build a site that's on par with SlideRuleEra's former site, and I will gladly accept your offer to offset the startup costs if you're willing to chip in. I'm a little rusty, but I've registered, built, and managed websites before. I'll start working on it a bit this weekend.

Also, if at any point you want to use this site as a platform for Giving Away Structural Engineering for Free ® (ref: https://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=483020 ), consider me on board. We can talk about it more later, but I've had ambitions of doing this as well. Maybe that could be a different site if you still want to do that, or maybe we could figure out a way to put them under the same umbrella as this historic docs repository.

skired - that's awesome, thank you and your friend for offering to help. I'll figure out the registration and hosting costs and will let you all know. It would be awesome if we could eventually raise enough through donations to register this site in perpetuity.

On the subject of donations/crowdsourcing this effort, do you guys have any recommendations for how we should facilitate that? I was thinking a GoFundMe could work, or maybe PayPal. Venmo and etc. would be fine IMO. It would be good to use something that converts funding automatically. KootK mentioned $CAD, I generally operate on $USD, but I'm sure there's some platform out there that would facilitate currency exchange.

GFM takes a % of all transactions, but usually makes people feel better (i.e. safer) about donating. Some people are skittish about sending money to a venmo or paypal directly unless they know them. So pros and cons of both.

SlideRuleEra, you should reach out to that guy over at Engineers Edge to measure interest - they publish a lot and have a bunch of old engineering archived books for free.

Thanks, Double-Edged.

CrabbyT - I've got some info to go over with you. Please send an email to the address I used on the website, at the bottom of this page:

https://web.archive.org/web/20221020140935/http://...

SRE - thanks, just sent you an email.

So, uh, does anybody have a book scanner laying around? Asking for a friend....

Incidentally, it looks like the internet archive more or less saved both the web site structure and a lot of the PDFs. So if somebody wanted to scrape the files from there and just let SRE know what wasn't archived (that SBC link doesn't have the source file anymore, I suspect because it's an external link that the ICC got taken down?).

If anybody wants to expand this, I could maybe be persuaded to send some old steel joist catalogs, but I'd want them back after they were digitized. It would be a trip if we somehow assembled all the SJI catalogs, for example, but I don't have anything that's not readily available on the internet in that vein. I have some middle aged Vulcraft catalogs is all. Like 1998. Maybe one earlier one that if I remember right had a reddish cover and was staple bound, perhaps that's an SJI catalog from around 1990.