Yep. Nugz and OiNK were how I got into vinyl ripping and live tape swaps afk. Only one tracker I joined in the early 2000s now yet remains.

On an interesting note, I'm still being commissioned for analog capture and restoration projects through connections I made back then.

OiNK changed my life. I discovered it in high-school and found so much good music that I never would have experienced otherwise. I still think about it at least a few times a year.

Was so sad to see oink go. What cd did a good job but nowhere close to oink. I feel there was one more that I’m missing after oink.

WhatCD was pretty damn good, I'd say it rivalled Oink. Remember the bounty on that MSFT forensic tool? The copy of the unreleased JD Salinger novel? Both fulfilled...

I remember coffee getting fulfilled, but don’t recall the Salinger novel getting fulfilled.

What was the story there? Iirc it was in the Princeton rare books library and it was hard to get access to? Guessing someone took photos?

Here's the story about the novel:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/nov/28/salinger-unpub...

Directly calls out WhatCD

Thanks!

They're thinking of the short stories, I guess?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What.CD#Leaks

https://www.thedailybeast.com/what-the-leaked-jd-salinger-st...

Lmao I remember the bounty for COFEE was up so high.. and it was super anti-climactic when it finally showed up. Nobody was impressed

Heh I know right? I think it freaked everyone out a little bit. Startled everyone as it had a whiff of LE…

Honest question, what did Oink have that what did not?

Oink was first to try, but what was the greatest collection of music in the history of the world with a lasting open source legacy to this day.

What.cd was certainly better than oink in terms of the library (largely because it was started by seeders who already had the entire oink library) but was definitely missing the charm.

waffles.fm maybe?

Waffles moved from fm to ch a while back. It also had a fake forum login in the early days. Not sure when it died though.

I remember people trying to get into FTN and others too that were known to be very exclusive - not sure if any of those are still around.

Yes!! :D

I was barely on OiNK. Got an invite and I think 2 months later it shut down :/ But I used waffles quite a bit. (I didn't like what.cd for some reason)

I was. It was a glorious time.

OiNK was amazing, big rip

Oh yeah!