via Chris Ryan on the Rhodes Chroma List:"Ten years ago [2/21/99] today the first version of the Chroma site went live. I posted five pages on the instrument to my personal site, and sent a short announcement to comp.music.midi (Usenet! how things have changed). I've attached a screen shot of the home page from 1999.
A decade later, the site comprises 327 pages and more than 975,000 words--about the length of ten or eleven novels--including over 3700 posts to the mailing list (which now has about 150 subscribers). It all adds up to 330mb of information on our beloved synthesizer. All of the documentation is available, along with most of the known reviews, a gold mine of technical information, software, patches, numerous downloads, and a lot more: take a look at the site map to get an idea of the scope if you haven't browsed recently. Of course, I couldn't have done it all myself; see the list of contributors.
Perhaps most significantly, activity surrounding the instrument has resumed, with excellent projects such as the CPU Plus, SPSU kit, and more. Some have purchased and/or restored their instruments as a result of the community and the resources available at the site.
There have been more than a couple hundred thousand visitors, which is astonishing considering we have figured out that only about 1500 Chromas were manufactured, and probably only a few hundred, at most, are currently in use or even in working order. I've updated the Site Statistics page with information through the end of 2008; it's quite interesting to see the changes in browsers, referring sites and search engines, and top pages over the years.
Thanks, everyone, for your continued participation, contributions, and donations. It's been really rewarding; I've learned a lot and have heard from many great people from all over the world.
Chris"
I want to congratulate Chris on running THE BEST dedicated synth site on the web hands down. It really is amazing how much life Chris has given to the Rhodes Chroma through the site and the email list. As someone on the list said, if it weren't for the site his Chroma would be a paper weight. As a proud owner of a Rhodes Chroma myself, I sincerely thank Chris for all he has done for us. I still need to get me a CPU Plus one day. :) If you haven't checked out the site, do it. It's a vast resource not only on the Rhodes Chroma but the Polaris as well.
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