Back in the annals of internet history (1990) an above knee amputee (yours truly) was seeking an activity to replace the hole left from years of athletic competition. The hole started to fill by the purchase of a Macintosh SE (an 8mHz CPU, 20 meg HD and 4 megs of ram). I began to publish Amprint and eventually Ampscan for the Canadian Amputee Sports Assoc.(CASA). With the purchase of a 2400 baud modem in 1991, I began to discover local bbs's and in a short time realised that an online service could be handy.
I discovered the Mobility Forum on Compuserve and began posting text versions of Ampscan and Amprint there. I also ran into Al Pike (who I eventually got to meet in 1996) and Bill Baughn. I used Compuserve to gather information for the two newsletters, as a result the content of the newsletters expanded beyond the realms of what the powers that be in CASA could deal with.
In the summer of 1994 I took to the realms of the internet and was dismayed to find almost no amputee resources on the net (apart from an FTP site that had strange pictures of amputee women). I joined several listservs at St Johns University and over the summer chatted with people from mobility and numerous other lists, none of which really catered to amputees.
In September 1994 I approached Dr Bob Zenhausen at St. Johns and enquired about St Johns hosting an amputee oriented list and on October 1st 1994, the first internet mailing list for amputees came into being.
Our first flame war - although I can't remember exactly what it was about (devo's on the list probably) I took it very personally. How could something I created cause so much pain and anger in people? I almost closed the list down then. However, I was encouraged by a number of people to keep the list running. But the devotee issue flared again and again (as it still does) each time the heat was immense, people left vowing never to return. The list was in turmoil, real amputee issues were being downtrodden by devotee issues, action had to be taken.
At first I simply asked devotees to stop sending messages to the list, they ignored me. Then I started deleting people for ignoring my requests. I was both congratulated and chastised for deleting people. As a result of the request for less devotee talk, Bill Stackhouse an AK from Portland, Oregon started a more devotee oriented list. Even the existence of a devotee oriented list still didn't stop the issue being raised on St Johns, however it was amputees discussing the issue, rather than dev's telling amputee's what to think. Today devotees are banned from the St Johns listserv.
By the following summer I began to realise a lot of the same questions were being asked on the list time and time again. Therefore, in order to keep a permanent record of FAQ's I started the Amputee Home Page (now the Amputee WEB Site), the first true amputee oriented web page dedicated to the needs of the amputee. The Amputee Home Page was officially launched one year after the St Johns list was started October 1995.
The amputee information began to roll in at an incredible rate. Ampscan and Amprint became more international and more amputee oriented in scope, sports kind of faded to the background and in May 1996, CASA who owned all the computers, printers, scanners and modems I had been using since 1990 played their always superior winning hand. In May 1996 they gave me two weeks notice to hand back all their equipment.
I was broke, I had no money, so I turned to the St Johns list for help.
To my utter suprise, help in the form of US dollars rolled in. By the time the two weeks were up I had over $3000 Cdn sent to me. With that money I bought the computer, scanner, monitor I use today. People like Bruce Jaster, Tim Adams, Ted Trower, Lou Haberman, Rob Katzer, Carl Sarten, and Jackie Gay made signifcant contributions that helped keep this list running. (See the credits section of the AWS for more details).
I could also turn to CASA, (whose relationship with me had turned very sour) and say "I don't need your computer I've got my own". I've still not talked to the members of CASA since that time, some of whom I had been "friends" with since 1982. Ironically, it was me who did all the fundraising for the last Power Mac 6100/66 CASA ended up with, the funds came from the Canadian Airlines Employees fund, so I obviously felt some ownership of that computer. Sadly, it sat for almost a year before it was used again to put out one newsletter in the summer of 1997.
However, in the June of 1996, my need to publish was fulfilled by the creation of Amputation E-Zine or as it is known today Amputation Online magazine. Today Amputation remains the only publication of its kind to published on the net.
The St Johns list continued "seemlessly" through the CASA transition. However, another shakedown was on the list before too long. This shakedown involved none other than George Boyer, who I had pretty well done my best to ignore for the most part. However, when GB advocated that "wannabees" fulfill their destiny and become amputees by whatever means possible, the final straw had been clawed at. I deleted GB from the list, this action alone created the AMP-L list via Wayne Renardson. Wayne was inspired enough by my action toward George to start the AMP-L list. At least 50 people from the St Johns list felt strongly enough to follow Wayne and George over to AMP-L. (around that time there were about 300 people on St Johns), most simply subscribed to both lists.
I always knew there was room for more than one amputee list, in fact I had hoped there would have been more than the four (I-CAN run by Bill Baughn) in existance. I have never believed that one list could cater to ALL aspects of amputation and I heartily encourage anyone to start a list somewhere else.
The last twelve months at St Johns have seen a few more flame wars and even a coup d'etat by an x co-moderator who took over complete control the list for about 12 hours. People come and go on a regular basis - it seems as many people leave as they arrive, however some names have remained constant since day one.
Likewise, I'm not suprised to see the same cycle of events that happened on St Johns has now occuring on AMP-L. Wayne and I have a different style of moderating, some people believe me to be tyranical and egotistical, hence two separate lists. I don't have the time to sit on AMP-L nor TELEPORT. (I also run the Disability Sport list at St Johns). Wayne is entitled to run his list they way he see's fit. The differences are more than apparent to anyone that has spent time on both lists - you be the judge!
Looking back at 1997 I can honestly say this list has surpassed all my expectations of helping people like Mikey Dodd get through his amputation.
As we come to the end of 1997 and so begin the St Johns list fourth year of operation I expect the list to continue helping people facing the abyss of amputation, with amputees helping amputees, to continue breaking down the barriers between the prosthetic industry and the amputee and of course with the odd flame war thrown in to keep us alert.
The St Johns list still faces the growing pains of youth, although they seem to be getting less severe are the years roll by. The list is challenged to reach as many amputees as possible - to which every subscriber should be doing thier utmost to spread the word!
With that in mind I'd like to thank all of you for either helping make this list via your contributions and thank those who simply sit back and lurk, you must be learning something from 30-50 emails per day, better to lurk than to be not here at all!
I look forward to moderating the list onwards into the 21st Century.
Thanks
Ian Gregson
SJU Amputee List Moderator
