1997 was before PHP, JSP, MySQL or ASP.  The web consisted of static pages and dynamic via CGI. The University of Northern Iowa asked if I could create a “talent database” where individuals could login via a web interface and volunteer as local experts in various fields and keep in contact via email. 

Written entirely in Perl via CGI using DBD/DBI libraries with a mSQL back-end (the precursor of MySQL). In order to make the system completely automated I created a Perl to sendmail to database interface.

The system sent out periodic e-mails via cron and Perl. There was a sendmail/Perl hook in /etc/sendmail.cf that looked for emailed replies, and then automatically updated the database based on the emails received by users.