Information About WinSite

Welcome to the world of multimedia greeting cards!

Our Origins
WinSite Mirror Sites
WinSite CDROMs
WinSite Computing Environment
WinSite gets noticed...

Welcome to WinSite, The Planet's Largest Software Archive for Windows shareware and trialware on the Internet. WinSite Group (formerly the CICA Windows FTP archives) went on the air Friday, October 13th, 1995. Despite the superstitious date, we emerged from the temporary accomodations generously provided by CICA, to a full T1 Internet connection (which we easily saturated), with three times the processing power and twice the disk space. Since October, we have expanded and grown the site beyond our humble beginnings and are now employing three (3) T-1 data circuits to the Internet backbone. (CICNet provides WinSite with Internet connectivity.)

The WinSite archives is managed and cared-for by its founders, Michael Regoli, Eric Ost, and Peter Beckman, who formed the WinSite Group in August, 1995. Mike originally started the CICA ftp site (with the help of Greg Travis) in April 1991, to fill a huge gap in the lacuna that was Windows FTP sites. Now, WinSite is pleased to continue serving the authoring community by providing an on-line presence for the promotion and dissemination of Windows shareware on the Internet.

Our physical world

We are located in the historic Showers Furniture building in Bloomington, Indiana. The Showers building is nearly 100 years old and at 155,000 total square feet, has recently been renovated and converted to prime office space in Bloomington. It is divided into thirds, and runs as a three-way partnership between the City of Bloomington (which houses City Hall and administrative offices there); Indiana University; and CFC, Inc., a private real estate concern. Take a (graphics heavy) photo tour of our world.

A word of thanks!

America OnLine has supported WinSite in their Give Back to the Net program.
c|net continues to lend a welcome 'helping hand' for our efforts.

We'd like to thank others, but we need you to help us first! To find out how, click here.

WinSite Mirror Sites

Currently the FTP portion of this archive has dozens of "mirror sites" spread around the planet, with at least one on every continent (except Antarctica). To see a list of sites closer to you, click here.

WinSite on CDROM

There are several companies that press the content of our archive onto CDROM. Click here for a list of WinSite CDROM vendors.

WinSite's Computing Environment

WinSite currently has four servers:

ftp.winsite.com: 166Mhz Pentium FTP Server

166Mhz Pentium running on a SuperMicro P55CMS-PCI motherboard
512K pipeline burst CPU cache
Triton I PCI chipset
128MB RAM (256MB swap)
Linux 2.0 (the system is benched at 66.35 bogomips)
Adaptec 2940U PCI UltraSCSI controller
SMC EtherPower Pro PCI Ethernet Controller
a myriad of connected devices (e.g., Seagate Barracuda and Hawk disks)

micron.winsite.com: Micron 90Mhz PCI Powerstation Plus

90 Mhz Pentium Micron PCI Powerstation Plus
256k CPU cache
Micronics Motherboard, with Intel Neptune PCI chipset
128MB RAM (130MB Swap)
Linux 2.0 (Linux benches this system at at 36.04 bogmips)
Buslogic BT946C (Rev F) PCI SCSI-II card
a myriad of connected storage devices
SMC EtherPower PCI Ethernet Card
2GB 4mm Python and 4GB 4mm HP tape backup
4X speed CDROM

www.winsite.com: Sun SparcServer 20/61 (donated by AOL)

CPU is a TI,TMS390Z55 clocked at 60 MHz
128MB RAM (196MB swap)
Operating system is Solaris 2.4
A myriad of connected storage devices
10 Mbps ethernet adapter
4mm DAT tape backup

"The General": A 486-50 Linux Box

The FTP and WWW servers are connected to The General, a 486 Linux box that provides performance and system monitoring. Should something go wrong with one of the servers, The General can, through our rebootinator technology, reset the servers on the WinSite server farm.

WinSite gets noticed...

...by the nicest folks! Here's what they have to say.

WinSite is selected as one of the 100 Hot Web Sites on the 'net.

www.hot100.com has placed WinSite in its list of the "Hot 100 Web sites" on the Internet. With links to the "hottest, most popular content on the Web," www.hot100.com is the first service of its kind to rank websites by hits.

PointCom Top 5%

PointCom awards WinSite top 5% of all web sites!

Wednesday January 3, 1996. Point Communications Corporation has rated WinSite's Web page among the top 5% of all sites on the Internet by Point Survey.

Point is a free service which rates and reviews only the best sites on the World Wide Web. Point Communications provides surfers with a standard of excellence: a catalog of the most lively, useful, and fun sites on the Net. If you haven't already seen Point, visit them at: www.pointcom.com.

A chilly reception...

Tuesday October 2, 1996, 10 o'clock Pacific Time, we were the "Cool Site of the Hour" as determined by the Cool Staff at CoolCentral.Com. And yet, we can't seem to get ice cubes out of the freezer without dropping half of them all over the floor...

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