About the TCS VAB

Version history:

• Version 3.22 was created on July 3, 1996.
  • Fixed the bug that caused the number of URLs listed on the home page to have a leading zero digit.
  • Made the response to the submission form a little less intimidating.
• Version 3.211 was created on June 10, 1996.
  • The name was changed to TCS Virtual Address Book on legal advice.
• Version 3.21 was created on April 11, 1996.
  • A page listing the available accents and the corresponding html escape sequences was linked to the update page and the electronic form so that users can be encouraged to use the correct html sequences for accents so that the search engine will work correctly on their names without manual modification of the name file by the current administrator, who was getting tired of doing just that. (Can you tell that it's been a long day?)
• Version 3.2 was created on March 25 1996.
  • A bug in the search engine prevented searches from finding names containing accents. This bug was fixed so that searchers can simply leave out the accent from the name and still get a correct string match.
• Version 3.1 was created on November 20, 1995. Changes include:
  • parallel text-only version
  • parallel deluxe version (textured woodgrain background)
• Version 3.0 was created on November 13, 1995. Changes include:
  • names served up one letter at a time using a Perl server
  • menu bar and letter menu using imagemap server
  • automatic update script rewritten in Perl
  • simple search engine
  • gratuitous sounds (.au format)
• Version 2.1 was created on October 17, 1995
  • number of accesses counted using an X bit map
• Version 2.0 was created on August 23, 1995.
  • names separated visually with a subsection for each letter
  • a text-based menu region allows the browser to jump to each subsection
• Version 1.0 was created on January 11, 1995.
  • names presented in one huge undifferentiated list
  • automatic update program created using Bourne shell, sed, and grep