jdang - Class of '96

From jdang1@gl.umbc.edu Fri Nov 10 22:09:46 2000
Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2000 14:28:36 -0500
From: James Dang <jdang1@gl.umbc.edu>
To: Justin Osborn <josborn@mbhs.edu>
Cc: fogies@mbhs.edu
Subject: Re: Calling all (former) Sysops!


Hmm.  Now honestly, I've already forgotten a lot of what I did, but lets
see what I can remember.

I was a sysop after Mr. Yee, and before Mr. Hammond.  The core sysops were
dgould, dsandler, dpeck, jdang.  Other notables were ncook, erosenbl, and
hhui.  hhui wasn't really a sysop, he just kinda wrecked havoc, and hacked
into the DecStation when we didn't know the root password.

fwright appeared in there at sometime, but i can't remember when... i
think maybe a year after i started, damn i can't remember.

When I started, there wasn't an official 'sysop' group, it was just kinda,
help out here, help out there, cool.  We had a LOT of freedom to do
whatever we wanted; hammond wasn't there (hehe), we were the only school
in the county with an internet connection (it was 9600 baud, i believe),
the lab was a bunch of Mac SE's, Goober (rs6000) with 4 xterminals, the
wonderful MicroVAX II (Mr. Yee's domain), a cyber910 that was broken the
ENTIRE time, a Decstation that wasn't really used.

if i remember correctly, i spent most of my time hidden behind those big
xterminals, compiling all sorts of programs, doing random hacking,
patching, mini-projects that teachers wanted, etc.  backups (ever now and
then =), etc.  goofing around with dgould, dsandler, dpeck, etc.

the biggest thing i accompolished was probably Binx.  at the time, the
email system for the whole magnet was the microvax ii.  this awesome
machine had the raw power to handle 4 concurrent users.  any more, and
it'd start swapping like crazy.  i think i saw 17 users online
once.  maybe more.  it was a sad sight.

i don't remember who originally came up with the idea for linux, but it
was definitely one of us (me, dgould, dsandler, dpeck).  i think i had the
most linux experience (i was running it at home, back in the pre1.0
days.).  But anyway, we pitched the idea to the teachers, explaining
linux's benefits, how you could just buy a regular PC instead of trying to
upgrade goober or whatever, etc.  So they liked the idea, and it was up to
us (me?  i forgot who did it) to go out and tell the school what computer
to buy, etc.  Back then, drivers were VERY important; linux didn't support
a lot of stuff, so we had to make sure we were buying compatible
stuffs.  even then i think i donated a network card to the school... not
sure about this one though.

so binx was ours (the students) to play with.  we (dsandler, ncook, with a
teeny bit of help from me) created the first version of Hello that you all
love.  Binx is actually a character in dsandler's comics.  we played a lot
of linuxdoom on binx.  

oh yeah, on the xterms, the games of choice were Xbomb, and Xtank.  OH MAN
xtank was the shit, and it still is.  that game ROCKS.  there was a small
problem with getting it to compile, however...  i think we found binaries
somewhere.  we ran it on binx too.

i think the first version of www.mbhs.edu was before binx.. on goober.  
Can you believe we were around before netscape?  we were using Mosaic for
a while... www.cern.ch or something.. hahah.  dsandler/dpeck/nook deserve
all the credit for the site, with contribs from a few others i think.

there was a storage loft that overlooked the center lab, that had couches
and stuff.  that was always fun.

i was also involved with MVHS.  When it started.  We installed linux on
six gateway computers, .. each computer was destined for some highschool
in maryland.  those few weeks of installation were fun.  Lets just say, we
played a LOT of deathmatch.  Then came the time to go out and deliver the
computers.  We took day trips (me, fwright, ms ragan, ms verona) to
schools (the furthest was northern hs in the westernmost county of
maryland).. we setup the computers, and helped teach the teachers
(hehe) how to use em.  and then we provided support remotely from blair.

i forget when we got the Annex, but i was 15% involved in that.  i think
that was mostly dpeck?  but im not sure.

also of interest was the earth science lab, all the computers there were
installed with linux too.

at some point i brought in one of my old computers, installed linux on
it, and used it as another terminall. i think it was a 386sx, with 8 megs
of ram.  it actually ran xwindows, and doom.  we called it
papasmurf.mbhs.edu (or just smurf.mbhs.edu).

also helped out with the networking of the school, although not as
much.  this was when there was an official 'networking class', and
sysopdom was getting more and more structured.  this was around the time
that i cut back on my sysoply duties, and mostly helped out with the real
critical problems =).

damn that was a lot.  i probably left out a lot of stuff, and probably
remembered some stuff wrong, but you get the idea. haha.


jdang