Sorry Mikeruth, but Ed is so right. This data from the old board is in a format that is really only readable using the old forum software... it would not be an easy task to transform this data into something you could easily search. That is why the data was left available on line along with the means to search it... otherwise it would have been a very easy task to transpose this data into the new forum software when we made the transition to our current setup. It just isn't feasible.
Another major issue is the matter of privacy. Many entries of the old forum contain privacy information like email addresses and phone numbers... by moving it to CD, it would make it too easy for someone to harvest that information. Even your current email address is private here unless you post it publicly... Since the terms and conditions that applied to the old board didn't state that anything posted became the property of the forum... it wouldn't be right to distribute that data in such a way.
The photographs that were associated with many of the old posts are no longer available in most cases... but the text will be available as long as this forum is on the Internet and I intend for that to be as long as I am breathing...
