I was the original webmaster for the Caltech Alumni server. I set up the original structure and content in 1994, and it stayed pretty much the same until they overhauled it in May 2004, just under 10 years later. I recovered the old Alumni Server History page from the Wayback Machine; it appears here below the line.
Jim McBeath, November 21, 2004

History of the Caltech Alumni Computers

A brief (and probably biased) history of alumni.caltech.edu.

Begun by Jim McBeath, mostly from personal sources, and maintained by the alumni webmasters. I'd be happy to round out this history with information from other sources. Send me email listing whatever names, dates, and events you think were significant.

Chronology

?
Gary Stupian heads up ECC, proposes that a computer be set up for use by Caltech Alumni.

May, 1992 (?)
Alumni computer set up. Modems are 2400 baud. Disk quota is 1Mb.

?
CCO upgrades campus modem pool. Alumni gets 9600 baud modems.

Nov, 1993
Jim McBeath (jimmc), having recently discovered the web (still in its infancy), begins discussions with the ECC about running a web server on alumni. [1]

Jan 27, 1993
Jimmc receives approval from the ECC to run his own web server on alumni, and starts doing so. The ECC gets the chance to learn about web servers and determine if they are a performance problem for the machine. [1]

Feb 9, 1994
Heather Sherman sets up alumni's own ftp address, ftp.alumni.caltech.edu. Files of alums previously kept on ftp.cco.caltech.edu are moved over. [1]

Apr 20, 1994
Jimmc volunteers to be webmaster in order to get the system going. [1]

Apr 21, 1994
The ECC gives the go-ahead to set up an official web server on alumni. [1]

Jun 15, 1994
Steven Fought sets up the web server software on alumni. Jimmc starts setting up the files. [1]

Oct 9, 1994
Jimmc invites Dan Kegel to join the webmaster team and take care of CGI scripts. He accepts (Oct 13). [1]

Jun 19, 1995
John Beck volunteers to join the webmaster team to help with home page requests. Soon we are three. [1]

?, 1995
A new computer is added to the alumni computer pool, and is named alumnae. The alumni computer pool has just doubled in size!

Oct 1995
Dan Kegel adds a simple but usable daily log file page, /logs/. [2]

Jan, 1996
Vicki Brown gets alumnae configured with lots of software, it starts to get significant use.

Feb 18, 1996
Jim McBeath converts the home page list to a searchable format. [1]

Feb 20, 1996
Heather Sherman upgrades alumnae to Solaris 2.5. [3]

Sep 6, 1996
The ECC officially becomes a subcommittee of the newly reorganized Communications Committee, but retains its status as the source of policy decisions for the alumni computer systems. Ross Berteig volunteers to chair a new subcommittee to study the Caltech Web presence as it applies to alumni, the Alumni Association, and the Alumni Fund. [4]

Sep 24, 1996
The Web Site Group has its first meeting. [4]

Oct 10, 1996
Ross Berteig, having too much free time on his hands, takes over from Jim McBeath as primary webmaster. [4]

People

Sources

[1] Personal email and files of Jim McBeath
[2] Personal files of Dan Kegel
[3] Posted to local caltech.alumni newsgroup
[4] Personal files of Ross Berteig
rberteig October 10, 1996