View source for Pentix - The Art of Pen Spinning

[[File:{{#setmainimage:pentixorder.JPG}}|thumb|300px|Pentix learning order on the V3 site]]'''Pentix - The Art of Pen Spinning''' or '''Pentix''' for short was an early English-language pen spinning website. Created by [[Kam]] in January 2000 it was pivotal to teaching the hobby in a time where pen spinning knowledge was scattered, disorganized and often in other languages. It was also the place where the first English-language pen spinning forum was created in 2002.

==History==
===Origins===
The name of the site "Pentix" originated from Kam's second year of high school in 1997 while he lived in Brazil<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20030802110322/http://pentix.modenstudios.com/about.html Archived Pentix "About" page]</ref>, where he introduced pen spinning to a few others and formed a club that lasted about a month. The club was named "Pentics" and later renamed "Pentix" as their teacher asked if they had tics after watching them spin pens. [[Hideaki Kondo|Hideaki Kondo's]] site inspired Kam when he visited it a year later and he set out to make a site with the help of his friend, Eiji, who would become one of the original Pentix members.
===Pentix V1===
The first version of Pentix came online in January 2000. It relied heavily on graphics rather than text and videos, although some text was available in both English and Portuguese (as Kam grew up in Brazil). The site was custom-coded by Kam, making it difficult to maintain, and was hosted on Yahoo! GeoCities. GeoCities US terminated in 2009, consigning the Pentix GeoCities site to archives.
===Pentix V2===
By June 2000 Pentix had been stripped down to a simpler black and white design and most non-functional graphics were removed from the site. Kam obtained a video camera, and began uploading video tutorials to help explain how to perform tricks. By late 2001 the growing popularity of Pentix had caused the bandwidth limit set by GeoCities to be regularly exceeded. This resulted in the switching of the hosting provider to Moden Studios, an independent game developer that later changed name to [https://meowx.com/ MeowX Studios]. Soon after on November 15th, 2001 Pentix Board (informally UPSB V1) opened. On May 16th 2002, the Pentix V2 site was featured on news outlet USA Today's 'Hot site' list for the day<ref>[https://usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/cyber/2002/05/16/hotsites.htm May 16 2002 USA Today Hot Sites featuring Pentix]</ref>.
===Pentix V3===
The website was redesigned in June 2002 to a blue and white theme. Kam converted the basic Pentix forums on the site to a separate section of the website called Pentix Board, a precursor to [[UPSB]]. A chatroom had already been released, named "UPSB Chat". On November 6th 2002 the site was featured again on USA Today's 'Hot site' list<ref>[https://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/webguide/hotsites/2002-11-06-hotsites.htm May 16 2002 USA Today Hot Sites featuring Pentix]</ref>. In the second half of 2003 a Flash-based Pentix Client was released that could show video tutorials. On September 26 2003 the bandwidth allowed by Moden Studios was exceeded and Pentix was shut down permanently to be replaced with Pentrix. After numerous requests, Kam released an archive of Pentix pages on the Pentrix site on November 1st, 2003.

===Pentrix - Pen Spinning Revolution===
Pentrix - Pen Spinning Revolution was launched in late 2003, with high quality videos on the site.

==External Links==
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20020115170850/http://www.geocities.com/kam_ykaze/links.html Archived original Pentix site, one of the few viewable non-image pages]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20011218060132/http://www.geocities.com/pentix2000/ Archived second iteration of the site]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20030803113736/http://pentix.modenstudios.com/index.html Archived third iteration of the site]
==References==
<references />
[[Category: Pen Spinning Communities]][[Category: Defunct Communities]]