Is Technicopedia Still Relevant?

[Toastie]

16 minutes ago, Erik Leppen said:

I still use MLCad to this day for my digital Lego models. It looks ancient, but it still looks and works exactly like it has done for years and I find that very comforting.

I am with you on everything you said. But now I also know that I am not alone. MLCad gives me a feeling of control, adjusting this and that to make it fit. It also allows cheating, impossible things in digital world, but surely in reality. I could not care less about that. The digital world that is. 

MLCad is a tool Michael gave me; my father and my father-in-law gave me some other. Technopedia is a tool, a repository, and a tool that @Blakbirdgave me. These are all people that I respect - for different reasons, but I find all this, as you Erik, very comforting!

Best
Thorsten 

[Blakbird]

1 hour ago, Erik Leppen said:

Edit: there's one little thing though that has always bothered me. The 20t and 40t gears on the animated icon don't actually mesh. If you could change that, that would be great :D

In all these years, I think you are the first person to actually notice that!  Of course I realized this when I made the logo, and you may notice that I carefully placed the text over the top of the gear teeth so you can't see that they don't mesh.  I chose those gears because they look good and have distinctively different styles.  Very non-Technic of me.

Thanks to all of the responders.  Sometimes I forget that there is a big difference from how I imagined Technicopedia in my mind and what it ended up being.  When I started it, I imagined fully cataloging all the models right up to the present (which was 2007 at the time) and then keeping it up to date as new models were produced  What I ended up with was a resource that was always historic in nature.  I started it when Technic was 30 years old, and when I stopped updating it 10 years later, the newest models documented on it were 15 years old.  At no point was I ever writing about models in current production.  I did do some of that right here on Eurobricks when reviewing new models, but as some have pointed out, a "review" is somewhat of a different animal than what I was doing on Technicopedia which was to document history.  Again, in my imagination I would have eventually incorporated some of that EB review material (I did lots of CAD pictures of how various functions worked) into Technicopedia when/if I got to those models.  So it may not have turned out exactly like I intended, but the response to it was more significant and positive than I could have imagined, and it opened me up to a whole new community.  My very post on EB was for introducing Technicopedia!  I don't regret any of it, and I'm proud of what I produced even if it stays just like it is now forever.

And by the way, it is very nice to hear from some of my old friends again.  Glad that so many of you are still here and remember me.

1 hour ago, Toastie said:

I am with you on everything you said. But now I also know that I am not alone. MLCad gives me a feeling of control, adjusting this and that to make it fit. It also allows cheating, impossible things in digital world, but surely in reality. I could not care less about that. The digital world that is. 

MLCad is a tool Michael gave me; my father and my father-in-law gave me some other. Technopedia is a tool, a repository, and a tool that @Blakbirdgave me. These are all people that I respect - for different reasons, but I find all this, as you Erik, very comforting!

I never graduated beyond MLCad.  Looking back through my posts, the last thing I modeled myself was the Lamborghini Sian, and I did it all in MLCad in a week with perfect alignment on everything.  That takes a certain amount of planning and skill that is very different than what is needed for a newer relational tool.  It's good for the brain!  Sadly, I no longer have a computer with any of that old software installed and it is a bit daunting to think about trying to recreate it.  I had all kinds of customization in my part library, my POV-Ray color palette, and my MLCad part sorting categories.  I probably have backups somewhere....

[allanp]

It's awesome to see you on hear again Blakbird. I still have fond memories of your visit to my house! I'm also horrified to read about the fire, and can only imagine what mental and financial turbulence such a life event would cause. I can only hope and prey you and your life are fully recovered.

I still love technicopedia. It documents sets from Technics beginning through to it's first golden era in a way that is unparalleled and unique. They weren't reviews as much as they were a full showcase of every aspect of every set, where the reader was given all the information they could ever want and then left to make up their own minds. 

I do still visit from time to time. Your coverage was so accurate and complete that it almost feels like revisiting the set itself in physical form, which is great for sets we own but even better for sets we don't.