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