About this archive

The Traveller Mailing List began in July 1987 as an email list for fans of the Traveller role-playing game. This site preserves its first seven years, the surviving digests of its sibling list XBOAT, and the files that members shared.

Where the list was hosted

This archive covers the years at Tektronix and the University of Western Ontario, up to message number 8,070 in June 1994.

Where the archive came from

The messages come from the list's own numbered archive bundles, which the administrators kept with the shared files. Bundles missing from that collection were recovered from the Traveller Mailing List Archives (external site) on the Internet Archive, compiled by Shawn Fry. Only the raw copies of the original bundles were used from that collection.

Known gaps

Of the message numbers from 1 to 8,070, 164 have no surviving message. Each one has a page at its usual address that says which of these applies:

• Never distributed (10): the number was skipped and never used for a message.
• Lost (95): the message was sent but did not survive, as the administrators recorded.
• Unexplained (59): the surviving files do not say what happened.

The tech-level 6 vehicle compilation, TL06, could not be read, because its compressed file is damaged. Its page is reconstructed from "The Dean Files", the web edition of the same designs that Robert S. Dean published in 1996, and it says so; one design, a diesel locomotive, is not in that edition.

Privacy

Email addresses, postal addresses, and telephone numbers have been removed from the messages and documents, and each removal is marked, for example [email removed]. Publishers' business addresses are kept. Programs and the original ZIP files are offered unchanged, so they may still contain the contact details that their authors included.

Reading the messages

Each message has its own page, which links to the message it replies to, the replies it received, and the whole thread. Threads were reconstructed from the messages' subjects, citations, and quoted text, so a few links may be wrong. You can also browse the messages by year and month, by author, and by subject, or go straight to a message by its number from the Messages page.

Searching

The search runs in your browser, so nothing you type is sent anywhere. It finds pages that hold every word you type:

• Word forms. A word also finds its other forms and the words it begins, so "orbit" also finds "orbiting" and "orbital".
• Phrases. Put words in double quotation marks to find them together and in order. "jump drive" finds only pages with that phrase, while jump drive also finds pages where the two words are apart. Words outside the quotation marks are matched as usual, so "meson screen" Imperium finds pages that hold the phrase and the word.
• Match case. Tick Match case to find words with the same capital and small letters that you type, so that "Imperium" no longer finds "imperium". It applies to phrases too.
• Sections. Tick one or more sections, such as TML Messages or Sectors, to search only those.

A search with a phrase, or with Match case, checks every candidate page's text before it gives its count, so it can take a few seconds when the words are common. Its first results appear as soon as they are found. The search page's address records your search, so you can bookmark it or send it to someone.

Links in the messages

Web addresses in the messages were checked when the archive was built. Those that still work are links, marked with an arrow because they leave this site. Those that no longer work are shown as plain text, since most of the sites of the early 1990s are long gone.

Legal

Notice and takedown

If you wrote something in this archive and want it removed or anonymized, or if you hold the rights to a file and want it taken down, please open an issue on the issues page (external site) of the project's GitHub repository (external site). Opening an issue needs a free GitHub account.