Avatar Archive

The Avatar Archive (also known as the Furry Art Archive, as it was the first of its kind) was an FTP site created by S'A'Alis as a continuation of Steven Stadnicki's Tezuka FTP server.


 * Addresses:
 * FTP: ftp://avatar.snc.edu
 * Web: http://www.avatar.furry.org
 * Founder: S'A'Alis
 * Ran from/to: 1993 - 2000 (with a ~9 month gap in 1997-1998)

History
The Avatar Archive began as an FTP server containing most of the operational files, maps, and diagrams for FurryMUCK (which was also under the administrative care of S'A'Alis at the time). It hosted one of the first furry art archives known to the fandom. Initially containing GIF images of characters from FurryMuck, it quickly expanded to host many kinds of furry media.

Content
There were no restrictions on quality or quantity aside from a prohibition on outright porn. Files were stored in single-letter directories based on the first letter of the filename. For instance, "something.gif" would be available as "/pub/furry/images/downloads/s/something.gif".

Although files were not sorted by artist, at its peak the site was a very popular place for furries to upload pictures.

Avatar's fate
The server's functions and files were eventually transferred to a web site, where they would stay until it went offline in 2000. The Yerf and FurNation art archives mirrored its contents for a short time.

After the death of S'A'Alis the physical servers have been sent to Hurga by members of the family, and the contents of the harddrives have been fully recovered. It is planned to put the historical contents online again for research purposes.