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I found an old PC building forum from 2003 that still had active mods | Abandoned Web Finds - Pinecone Attack

I found an old PC building forum from 2003 that still had active mods

I was looking for a BIOS fix for a motherboard from like 2005 and stumbled on this forum called Hardforum or something similar. The layout was that old vBulletin style with the gradient tables and thread prefixes in brackets like [FS] and [WTB]. I noticed the last post in a thread about cooling was from March 2023, which threw me off since most of the sticky guides were from 2006. Then I saw a mod had posted a reply two weeks ago just cleaning up spam links. It felt weird seeing someone still caring for a site where the main content is about overclocking Pentium 4s and IDE hard drives. Has anyone else found a dead forum where the staff never left?

2 comments

2 Comments

grayt465mo ago

That "keeping the lights on out of pure stubbornness" part really hits home. I had a similar thing with a car forum for a 90s model nobody drives anymore. The mods would still pop in to delete bot posts about fake Subaru parts and welcome the occasional new guy who bought the car as a project. One of them even PMed me a wiring diagram for a stereo install back in 2018, which was awesome because the original image links were all dead. It felt like they were holding a vigil for a dead hobby, just in case someone wandered by.

umab865mo ago

Wait, "still had active mods" cleaning up spam? That kind of blows my mind a little. I found an old Dreamcast hacking forum once where the last real post was from 2012, but the admin had logged in a few times last year just to update the SSL cert (I guess so the site would still load without a security warning?). It feels like some people just can't let go of their little corner of the internet (which I kinda get, honestly). Seeing a mod delete spam on a forum about Pentium 4s seems like they're just keeping the lights on out of pure stubbornness or nostalgia.