Webcam History

JEMMcam was started as an experiment in the Summer of 1996 by Jerry Pasker, who was was working over the summer at JEMM Controls Inc. With his black and white Connectix Quickcam, and an old 20Mhz Mac IIsi supplied by JEMM, and the support of his patient boss, Matt Bollwitt, the JEMMCam was started. Initially, it wa s located at 123 North Maple St. Within a few months of the start of the camera project, the Maple Street reconstruction began. Camera viewers watched the street construction progress. With the Maple Street construction project complete in the fall of '96, there was little to watch on Maple Street.

As the JEMMcam had gained popularity, JEMM Web services decided to purchase a Color Quickcam. In early 1997, Jerry left JEMM to attend college spring semester, and took his no longer used b lack and white Quickcam with him.

When Jerry opened Netconnect in February of '97, at 121 East First Street (Current home of BOSS Office) he talked the chamber of commerce, that was located in front of the same building, into allowing a Webcam a view of Main street. Netconnect provided Jerry's old black and white Quickcam, and the internet connectivity, and JEMM committed another old computer to be a webcam server. The Monticello Chamber of Commerce provided the front window view, and some space to set the computer, and JEMMCAM2 was born.

Even though it was in 256 shades of grey, The JEMMCAM2 became more popular than the original (now color) JEMMcam(1) because of it's location. JEMM decided to move the color JEMMcam1 to the front window of Cliff's TV located on Main street.
When the building that housed the Chamber of Commerce and Netconnect at 121 East First St was purchased in early 1998, the chamber of commerce had to move, to make room for BOSS Office Supplies. Luckily, the owner of BOSS Office allowed Netconnect to stay, due to the prohibitively expensive cost of moving phone and data lines to a new location under such short notice. However, the JEMMCAM2 had to be moved, so it went to JEMM's Maple Street location.

In the Summer of 1998 JEMM decided to move to a Main Street location right next to Cliff's TV. JEMM acquired a higher quality camera and server, and created a new JEMMCam1. The old JEMMcam1 stayed in Cliff's front window, and renamed JEMMCam2. The old JEMMcam2 was dismantled. (but they saved the Color Quickcam.. more on that later)

In the fall of 1999, Netconnect purchased a building on Main Street, where Deb's Hallmark was located, and moved in to offices that were built in the back of the building, allowing Deb's Hallmark to stay in the front. With no access to the front of the building, there was no webcam location. When Deb's Hallmark moved out in February of 2000, there was now room for a webcam.

This allowed the now color JEMMCam2 at Cliff's TV to move a block up the Street to the front window of Netconnect in mid 2001, and JEMMCam2 lived on Main Street for several years in the front window of Netconnect, until the computer, or camera that served it, finally failed. No one can remember exactly what happened. (Jerry suspects that JEMM's computer was needed to replace a failed JEMM server, or desktop computer, but can't recall any further details) JEMMCam2 was no more. However, JEMMCam1 continued to operate in the front window of JEMM Controls at their current location on Main Street.

In 2003, Netconnect rescued a spare machine from a dumpster at a certain unnamed big company that has a habit of tossing out perfectly useful computers, and using Jerry's old black and white Quickcam, the JEMMCam2 was again brought back to life. Shortly thereafter, the old black and white Quickcam 'bit the dust' and Netconnect started using Jerry's old Color Quickcam. The cat (5(R1P7 k1DD13 [script kitty]) that lived in the Netconnect building had a nasty habit of walking in the window and knocking over the camera, since both the cat and the camera competed for the best front window view of the street. After enough bumps and falls, the color started to fade. We think that one of the color CCD chips in the camera actually broke from hitting the floor so many times. To get a better view of First St, and escape the terror of the cat, JEMMCam2 was moved to an apartment above Netconnect. During the next two years, the color faded on the camera, and it shifted to a blue tint as time went on. In the spring of 2003 JEMM eventually sold their Web Services to Netconnect to focus on their core control business and discontinued their original JEMMCam. So JEMMCam2 became the JEMMCam1, and shortly thereafter, it was renamed the Netconnect Cam when the web transition from JEMM to Netconnect was complete.

In late December of 2004, some unfinished business was taken care of to completely finalize the movement of websites from JEMM to Netconnect. Because of a typo in a configuration file, the Netconnect Cam (formally the 3rd reincarnation of JEMMCam2) was left mostly inaccessible to the general public, even though it continued to snap pictures once per minute. Some websites that linked directly, however, did direct a small stream of camera viewers to the camera during this time.

In late January of 2005, the Netconnect camera had to move back to the main floor of Netconnect due to apartment renovations. The problems stopping the images from being published to the general public were discovered and corrected. The camera and old (resuced) server now lives in the front window at Netconnect at 117 East First St.

In addition to all these places, JEMM and Netconnect, and various other people have copoerated in the past to set up specail "event" cameras to catch the 4th of July parades, and various other events. (Jerry can not remember all the other places that the JEMMcam has been over the years, but does remember runinng Cat 5 cable in preparation for 4 of July parades)

In late April 2005, Netconnect placed a camera above Cliff's TV to capture the construction of the new library. In searching for additional hardware for two cameras to get a better view of the site, JEMM Controls dug out their old, original color Quickcam, and donated it to replace the fading camera at Netconnect's 117 East First St location. At this time, both cameras were renamed. "Monti-Cam1" lives above Cliff's TV, and "Monti-Cam2", with it's 'new' camera, lives in the front window of Netconnect.

Netconnect has always had plans for other cameras, in other locations, but funding has always been an issue. Quite simply, web cams do not, have never, and will never be able to yeild any revenue, what so ever. (Jerry figures that at 200 watts, over the past 10 years, the webcams have consumed over $1,700 in electricity alone! He doesn't want to even think about calculating the bandwidth costs over that period) We welcome donations, and we pledge that 100% of the money will go towards new cameras, camera software, and the computers that drive them. 10 years of keeping web cams running in Monticello have proven that everyone involved have done/do it out of the kindness of their hearts simply for the public good. Regardless of the expense of their own bandwidth, computers, servers, ellectricity, server upgrade requirements, personally owned cameras, commercail webcam software, and time that they could be spending with their families, they have contributed to keeping Monticello "live on the net" 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year for 10 years.

Donate via our secure SSL server. We ac cept Visa, Mastercard, Discover, and can even process direct checking/savings account transfers. Netconnect has been in business since 1997, and we have an excellent rating with the Better Business Bureau. Thousands of customers trust us to process thei r credit cards every month. Our company has handled tens of thousands of credit card transactions per month for several merchants that use our e-commerce solutions. We can accept donations as small as $1. If you wish, we can add you do the donation list, or you may remain anonymous. Again, 100% of the funds will go directly towards camera hardware. All operational and setup costs are paid for by Netconnect, and by the people/places that host the cameras. If we do not get donations to keep the cameras running, they will simply not be replaced as they (and the computers that drive them) wear out.