Is there a complete timeline of marker release dates anywhere?

[Bonjwa]

I'm trying to find or create a complete history of every marker ever released. Has this information already been assembled somewhere? Is there a good start somewhere? I feel like this sort of information is going to be lost to time and it worries me, also, I find it incredibly interesting!

Any help is appreciated.

[iamthelazerviking]

That would be cool to see. Bacci's Paintballhistory.com has a lot of good info on the "Paintguns" page here.

[Bonjwa]

I looked at bacci and didn't find this somehow, thanks!

[Ecapnation]

That would be a ridiculous amount of data to process. Probably would help going through all magazines and some other sources

[Bonjwa]

Would it really though? There can't be that many releases over any one year period.

[netsurferdude2]

Vintage rex has most of the release dates on each marker page.

[DocsMachine]

Thing is, that's too big a job for one person. There's been hundreds of markers over the years, and thousands of variations (IE, the different "editions" of Angels, 'Cockers and Intimidators.) For one person, it'd be a decade-long labor of love at best.

What surprises me- to this day- is that no one's tried starting a paintball wiki. This is the kind of thing where we'd basically have to "crowdsource" the information, with appropriate oversight to keep out the spammers and whatnot. But the software is publicly available and largely plug-and-play, the technology and methods of operation are mature, and it would 'spread the load' out to a wide range of people.

VintageRex was a good idea, and far better than nothing, but also limited, incomplete and rarely updated.

Doc.

[wthomas333]

It would be nice if a paid MCB membership also came with limited access to update certain items on VintageRex. Simple stuff like pics or marker info. That would keep spam to a minimum as only people with real interest would have access.

[Hp_lovecraft]

For a long time, the best tool to find "release dates" and history for anything made from the mid 80s to 2010 was Usenet. Usenet was a massive forum system dating back to 1980.
Their were paintball related forums like rec.sport.paintball, alt.sport.paintball, and the listserv and bitnet paintball sub forums that go back into the 80s.

So to find out when the autococker was released, all you had to do was search the Usenet archives for the first times the work was mentioned. The very first mentions might just be rumors, then maybe it showed up at events as a prototype, then teams starting getting early versions, etc. It was absolutely an amazing resource. and yes, you could find all the stupid things I posted back in the early 90s. Nothing ever really disappears as they say.

Usenet itself did not maintain an archive. But 3rd party companies did. Most archives only kept very specific subjects or forums. Only one really archived everything, and that was Dejanews. You could easily search Dejanews for literally any mention of anything on the usenet forums.4

Then something weird happened. Google bought Dejanews, and nearly all the large usenet archives in 2001. at first, nothing changed, then gradually over the years, Google started shutting down those archives, and instead pushing its own forum service "Google groups". By 2015, all the usenet archives were pretty much shut down, and all that historical data was lost.

So that sucks. There has been talk of a non-profit replacement for Dejanes (like the usenetarchive.com) but... no money... no replacement

[Brokeass_baller]

If only we still had PBReview.

[imped4now]

The PBN news section can help with a chunk of these. That's still a good bit of digging.

[Ecapnation]

It would depend on what we're counting as releases....

Cockers have several hundred custom versions.... 25 years later I'm still learning some.

intimidators have models that were released but under 10 made....

Egos would be a challenge too because color ways would need to be counted on the timelines

[DocsMachine]

It would depend on what we're counting as releases....[snip] Egos would be a challenge too because color ways would need to be counted on the timelines

-It all depends on how fancy and detailed you want to get. In most cases, if something like a ProStock were listed, it'd be enough for most people to know it was released in 2004. No one's really going to care that it officially went up for sale at 9:01AM the morning of April 6th, 2004, or whatever.

On the 'versions', specifically on 'Cockers, that would have to be split up. Going by actual Wiki format, there should be an initial WGP article, that goes through all the official WGP-released versions, and then separate articles on the other companies- Shocktech, Fireball Mountain, Carter, P&P, Eclipse, etc. Each of their variations should be listed under their page(es), and finally, again just like the real Wiki, a page listing all the pages of 'Cocker variations, alphabetically.

All of which I fully admit will be a LOT of work.

Doc.

[Ecapnation]

The eclipse color way paradox is unique too because if you ask them a colorway is a different model.

In the 06 model years there was an 06 origin ego. Oy difference was colors and splash screen.

Multiple ways to sort it..... But my take.

1- Base line model introduction no private labels
2- Base line models and major private label
3- Base line models, major and minor private labels
4- Every everything including one offs and customs

[latches109]

I’ve been thinking about this for a long time, it really is a large project and depends on how detailed you want to get -especially if you include aftermarket parts and upgrades. Is it history, measurements, images, stories… For example, I have images and caliper measurements of most autococker valves and bolts - does anyone really need or care about that?

Bones sent me all the Matrix history and info. I really need to dump that into a site for you guys.

[The Inflicted]

Godspeed to anyone who endeavors to catalog all the Spyder clones that came out. It seemed like there was a period in the mid '00s when a dozen or so slightly different guns would pop up on eBay or a handful of online stores, always from an OEM no one had ever heard of before, then disappear a few months later without leaving much of a trace.

https://ak1.ostkcdn.com/images/produ...mpolicy=medium