Creating a site to identify vintage scuba gear?

[Steven Bird]

Hi guys

A lot of posts to Scubaboard are about identifying gear. I'm probably not the first person to come up with this idea but is there any interest in creating a catalog of vintage regulators, computers etc. Edit: There are several sites (see other post) about early dive gear, but little about 1980-2000.

Im happy to help, but I'm not sure of the technology to use. Could be started in MS Word and the content migrated later. I work in a software development team so I could get some open source ideas how it could work for whoever manages Scubaboard.com.

So I'm thinking it wouldn't be that hard to:

1. Contact the core gear vendors and ask for a complete list of models. Eg a copy of their old sales/parts catalogs.
2. Knock up a basic document/page structure for our catalog
3. Populate the catalog using
   1. photos/diagrams the manufacturers might provide (eg from old sales catalogs)
   2. Once we know the models of the gear, a bit of googling should quickly find sample photos from Scubaboard, ebay, etc
4. maybe then add to the catalog things like o'ring sizes, specs etc.
5. maybe link to copies of service manuals (copyright permitting)

An example of something like this is the Hewlett Packard Calculator site: The Museum of HP Calculators way over the top for what I'm thinking but you get the idea of what a useful reference it could be.


Regards

Steve

 

[Steven Bird]

I see The Vintage SCUBA Regulator Collection have a really nice museum for antique gear. Antique meaning used by people older than me.

Regulator Identification | Vintage Double Hose, and Regulators USA have a great resource too.

Maybe sites like this could have a mutually beneficial arrangement. Provide some media/material in exchange for promotion and links to their site.

 

[Luis H]

I don't know if you would get much cooperation from Scuba manufacturers.

There was a privately owned Scubapro museum in a Scubapro dive shop, first in the Florida Keys and I think they moved to Kentucky (but I can't remember the details). They had a big website museum with very easy to find must every Scubapro regulator model with lots of great pictures. Scubapro asked them to take it down and they open their own (very limited) time line mini-museum. I haven't checked lately if it is still around.

From talking to other scuba equipment collectors, my impression is that many (if not most) of the dive companies are mostly interested in selling their new gear and do not keep a lot of information on their early equipment (I am sure there may be a few exceptions). They may have some advertising information, but it seems to be limited.

Only a few companies have been around long enough to have produced "vintage" gear and for the most part, they only support gear that is over 20 years old if it shares parts with some of their newer gear.

 

[ScubaBunga]

I wish I had downloaded that original timeline when I saw it. It was great and helped me with my own old gear and some others I bought at that time. The current scubapro listing is a poor marketing and not very useful site. I’ve contacted scubapro a few times now asking about their old timeline and I never got any real answer from them. So I like the idea but doubt the vendors will provide useful info.