Taiganet

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Taiganet
Logo of Taiganet, an illustration of trees.
Taiganet's front page as it appeared on November 7, 2021.
Taiganet's front page as it appeared on November 7, 2021.
Type of site
  • Internet forum
  • Software hosting site
Available inEnglish
Country of originUnited States
URLtaiganet.com
RegistrationRequired to post on forums
Users867a
LaunchedSeptember 2002; 21 years ago (2002-09)b
Current statusActive
  • a Number of users as of November 7, 2021
  • b According to user posts

Taiganet is an Internet forum most known for being the official home of the WeatherStar 4000 simulator project.

History

Taiganet began sometime in September 2002 as Taiga Networks, the home page for a "small hosting organization located in the little town of Sebago, Maine." In the first few years, the forum had a much broader focus, including support websites that Taiga Networks hosted, an IRC server, a server for the game Unreal Tournament 2004, and general server and broadband-related topics in addition to the WeatherStar 4000 simulator.[1] By mid-2004, the main page of the site had taken on a blog format generally discussing broadband topics, with the forums being accessible through a side link. By June of the same year, the site had changed its theme to a slightly more modern one, and had put more emphasis on the simulator in its forum categories. By the beginning of December 2004, the Unreal Tournament category had disappeared due to it being moved to a new website, and the WeatherStar 4000 simulator project's category became the focus of the forum.

The beginning of 2005 saw the introduction of a theme that used lighter blue colors than the previous one. By September, another dark theme was added to the site.

The website for Taiganet and data service went down for multiple days during the latter half of July 2022, returning on the 23rd. The downtime sparked rumors of the end of the simulator.

WeatherStar 4000 Simulator

Taiganet is the home of the WeatherStar 4000 Simulator (stylized as WS4000 Simulator), the most well-known simulator project in The Weather Channel's community. The project began in 2004 and has gone through four major updates throughout its history. The fourth and most recent major update, publicly released in December 2018, expanded the simulator's reach to Linux and macOS.

History

Version three (2011-2018)

Version three of the simulator was released in December 2011.

As far back as August 2014, plans were made to implement graphics options into the simulator that mimicked early graphics versions of the Weather Star 4000, with screenshots of progress on that updated posted around the time. However, this update was delayed for years, and when version four was released in 2018, the update was postponed further and ultimately never actualized.[2]

Version four (2018-present)

In December 2020, the National Weather Service made changes to its publicly available radar product, breaking the simulator's radar products in the process.[3] Since that time, the simulator has not received updates. The simulator's radar has remained broken since as a result.

See also

Other community forums

References

  1. "Taiga Networks". Taiga Networks. April 10, 2004. Archived from the original on April 10, 2004. Retrieved November 7, 2021.
  2. "Discussion & screenshots of upcoming early 90s styles". Taiganet. August 28, 2014.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  3. "Radar data not loading "Temporarily Unavailable"". Taiganet. December 28, 2020. Retrieved January 23, 2023.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)

External links