Note on viewing photos (PC, not Mac): If 4 Marusho and Lilac tank badges fill your screen horizontally, you are viewing at 640x480 pixels; 5 means you are using Super VGA resolution of 800x600; 6 1/2 tank badges means you are viewing at Super VGA resolution 1024x768. This site is best viewed at 800x600 or 1024x768.
The photos will appear dithered (speckled) if you are viewing them at 256 colors (and much worse at 16 colors).
I use Internet Explorer 6 for my testing.
There is nothing hi-tech on this site, but you really should have a copy of Adobe Acrobat installed if you want to print or view the literature.
About this site: This site is maintained on a homemade Pentium 4 system, using Internet Explorer 6, PageMaker 6.52, Photoshop CS, CorelDraw 11 and CuteFTP 2.6. The graphics were created to be best at 16.8 million colors, but still decent at 256.
This site was hosted at 5 different paid and free web-hosting services from 1997-2001. None was satisfactory. I bought the domain name 'MarushoLilac.com' and moved to a traditional paid web-hosting service, www.phenominet.com of Philadelphia about July 1, 2001.
Because of the large number of graphics on the history pages of this site I elected to avoid the tyranny of making the viewer click on thumbnails of every photo to get high resolution versions of them. I have endeavored to keep the size and borders of all graphics to that which is essential to convey what I want to show. Gray scale was frequently used because much of what is available on the subject is in black and white. The 'Marusho/Lilac Gallery' pages use a different approach. There a thumbnail picture is shown which, if selected, displays a fairly high resolution photo.
I am interested in feedback, both on the accuracy and usefulness of the materials
and on the performance of this site on your equipment.
BIO: I was born in Tennessee in 1944 and have lived in Virginia, just outside of Washington, DC, all my life, except for college at Stetson University in DeLand, Florida (20 miles west of Daytona) from '62-'66. There I used (up) a Honda 50 and a Honda 150 Benly. I have a 1971 BMW R60/5, which I've had since new, a 1966 Marusho Magnum, a 1965 Marusho ST, a 1960 Lilac LS-18/1, a 1961 Lilac MF-39, a 1961 Lilac CF-40, a 1965 Honda Dream 305, a 1978 Honda CT-90, a 1980 Honda CT-110 and a 1980 Honda NC-50 'Roadpal'.
I worked as a computer programmer at the Smithsonian Institution from 1968-1995 when I retired. My field was inventory for the collections and publishing of scientific databases, at first using mainframes and later, PCs. My wife, Jan, retired in 2003 from the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History.
We spend a good bit of time at our log cabin in Greene County, Virginia, about a mile from the Shenandoah National Park, Skyline Drive and Appalachian Trail. We also take our vacations in Switzerland in the village of Schönried in the Bernese Alps.
I prefer to be contacted by e-mail.. If I am at the cabin it may be several days before I reply.
TELEPHONE is (703)237-0859.
Send MAIL to me at:
Ralph Walker
1542 N. Jefferson St.
Arlington Virginia 22205
USA
My supportive wife, Jan Walker,
and kids. . .Vance and Spence are 39 and 38 now.
Yours truly, Ralph Walker