How did you find out about Collins?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Jeb Banner on June 26, 2008 at 1:51pm

I found out by visiting my friend Mary Kulesia who I was sorta dating at the time. She lived in Collins and told me how much she loved it, I went down to visit and fell in love with it as well. So Mary is to blame for this site in some weird way! Now where is she?

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Santo on June 26, 2008 at 1:52pm

A brochure in my application packet

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by mike whybark on June 26, 2008 at 2:17pm

I can't remember how I heard about it. I think it was kinda common knowledge among the freak kids in Bloomington that if we were going to IU that we were all going to live in Collins. I know that I went to my intake stuff already knowing that Collins was where I wanted to go.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Jeb Banner on June 26, 2008 at 4:41pm

when did it become an LLC?

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by CraiGrrr on June 26, 2008 at 6:32pm

As mentioned elsewhere, I practically grew up there. Richard the housing mgr is Dad to me.

I think the LLC was just tacked on when they changed the name from MRC, which was Men's Residence Center. Didn't make much sense since it had been co-ed for forever, and had also had the artist-in-residence program going for awhile, too, so the LLC was a natural. There had been classes offered there already back then, as well, as there was a darkroom in the basement of Ed. Ashton, by the way, was GRC.
Everyone living there at the time, and I think this was late 70's, really kicked up a fuss about the name change, though, so it stayed MRC in the local vernacular for quite awhile, and explained as Mr. Ralph Collins.

Early in the days of Wruble Computing center, like when I was eight or nine years old or something, There was actually a closet terminal in the basement of Ed. I got passwords from - dang, forget the directors name, friend of dad's - and a key and I practically lived in that closet playing star trek remote on ruble dial-up. I don't think anyone else even knew there was a terminal down there. There were hardly any anywhere on campus outside of Wruble itself back then.

Dad moved there from Forest Quad when I was about 5, so I probably ate dinner there at least a couple of nights a week from about 71/72 on, with plenty of students giving me a hard time - "who's the new grad student?". But man, I loved that! All the coca-cola I could drink!

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by mike whybark on June 26, 2008 at 6:39pm

Oh, I knew about that Wruble term, Grr. Never used it, but in the days of Note (a guerilla bulletin board that Sinclair and Marcus Geduld and Joe Frommer all participated in) we would pass around maps of where unattended and obscure terminals were. Some of them were actual teletypes, no CRT, just paper!

Were you ever on Note? I don't think you've ever mentioned it.

And your mention of coke makes me recall a coffee-drinking competition between Rex Burton and myself in the dining hall one afternoon. An error in judgement on both our parts.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by CraiGrrr on June 26, 2008 at 6:55pm

No, Mike, I didn't network at all. I just knew how to get on the game server for star trek and sub warfare and such. I didn't know any of you "campus brats" back then, either, living out in the hills. The only person I knew back then that went to an 'in town' school like Binford and such was Dilcher. And I didn't know him that well until high school, when I met everyone else.

I still can't remember the Wruble directors name, Richard Hamlin, maybe?, that turned me onto wruble and the collins terminal. He had a briefcase machine/modem with teletype. The modem was an actual phone cradle modem. Every time we'd go to their place for dinner, he was just ecstatic to hook that sucker up and show me how to get around on it when I was, jeez, a wee kid, anyway. I think the collins terminal was teletype to start with. Actually, they ALL were, I think. Pretty sure the CRT was invented just to save trees.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by K. Jenkins on June 26, 2008 at 8:07pm

@Jeb: I lost track of Mary K many years ago. Last saw her in '97 when she was back in town visiting.

She's one of my all-time favorite people. I heard about you from her long before I ever met you. I pre-judged you - not incorrectly - figuring anyone Mary would date is probably a pretty cool guy.

Glad she swayed you to make Bloomington your scene - otherwise MFT might be a South Bend music network - which would surely be lame. :)

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by mike whybark on June 26, 2008 at 10:53pm

Richard Hamlin, damn, that rings a bell. Oh, jeez, I sure hope it's not the same guy that Google dredges up! Couldn't be, anyway. My dad had one of those crazy modems, too - they are fetishtastic! "Acoustic couplers," they called 'em.

like this:

I used to have a link to a web-based emulation of Wruble stuff, but I've lost it. You could play Star Trek in your web browser!

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by FinnSwingley on July 12, 2008 at 1:09pm

As someone else said, it was sort of common knowledge that Collins was the "freak dorm" among the Bloomington kids. Not that I was really one (a Bloomington kid, I suppose I was a freak), but I was in the neighborhood. So when I decided to go to IU, it was an obvious choice to check it out.

It was certainly worth it and was a dorm experience like no other at IU. A great community of weirdos. Met Jeb there the first day. I imagine that had some impact!

▶ Reply to This

▶ Reply to This