It has been almost six years since I bought my BT3000. I was a twenty six year old computer geek looking for a hobby to occupy my free time. I had always been fascinated with the thought of building furniture, so I decided to try out woodworking. I didn't know a miter slot from a sliding miter table but for some reason the BT3000 intrigued me. I did what any self-respecting computer geek would do and turned to the Internet for research. I quickly found the original Ryobi Power Tool Forum and met people like Jim Frye, BlueBoy, Ted Michon, Jerry Glauser, Woodmangler, and Ed Ellickson. Back in those days, it wasn't unheard of to see posts on the forum by Ryobi employees like Tom Clinkscales and Wayne Hill. After reading every thread on the forum I decided to buy the BT3000. I was convinced that I could find no better saw in for the $459 price tag on the BT3000 at Lowes. That was January 1997.
