Netrek Timeline, through Jan 1 1994
By Andy McFadden (fadden@catapent.com)Revisions by Nick Trown (trown@ecst.csuchico.edu)
Revised: 18-Jan-95
All dates are in month/year or as close as I can get to it.
The information here should be completely accurate. Errors should be limited to errors of omission (though there are probably LOTS of those).
DATE OCCURENCE
--------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------
Pre-1968 Dark Ages
1968 PLATO system created
1972 Empire written for the PLATO system by S.Warner and J.Daleske
1975 Empire updated to (nearly) its current form by C.Miller
and G.Fritz
1981 Empire tournament modifications added by S.Peltz
1982 Conquest written for VAX/VMS by J.Poskanzer and C.Leres
1982 Trek82 written by D.Davis
1983 Trek83 written by D.Davis and C.Guthrie
Feb 1986 X10R3 window system released by MIT
Spring 1986 Xtrek begun by C.Guthrie and E.James
1986 janus.berkeley.edu becomes first Xtrek server
1986?? sequent.berkeley.edu becomes primary Xtrek server
Jul 1987 Xtrek posted to comp.sources.games (v01i073)
Mar 1988 X11R2 released by MIT
Spring 1988 Netrek (Xtrek II) begun by S.Silvey/K.Smith
Spring 1988 Xtrek III begun by N.Lai/J.Edwards
Spring 1988 sequent.berkeley.edu becomes primary Netrek server
Fall 1989 DI system added by K.Smith
Fall 1989? Netrek sources posted to Usenet by K.Smith
Fall 1989 KSU Chaos server set up by B.McCoy and B.Verser
Oct 1990 bronco.ece.cmu.edu server set up by T.Chang
Nov 1990 KSU Galaxy server built by J.Young and J.Frain
Jan 1991 Netrek information archive established by J.Hardwick
Summer 1991 sequent retired as a *trek game server
June 1991? HunterKiller (Iggy) invented by T.Chang
May 1991 First Netrek game played via SLIP by J.Hardwick
Aug 1991? alt.games.xtrek created by T.Holub
Aug 1991 First server/FTP lists posted by T.Holub
Oct 1991 Netrek info file FTP site announced by J.Hardwick
Nov 1991 First CMU vs. Berkeley All-Star game, at KSU; CMU genocides
Dec 1991 XSG written by A. McFadden
Dec 1991 First sturgeon server by D.Tsang goes public
Jan 1992 rec.games.netrek CFV issued by T.Holub
Jan 1992 INL created by T.Holub; first INL Rulebook posted
Jan 1992 Xtrek 6.0 released by C.Guthrie
Jan 1992 Helix borg released by J.Diachun
Jan 1992 Beef borg patches released by L.Dickens
Feb 1992 First INL game played
Feb 1992 UDP code written by A.McFadden
Feb 1992 Advanced IPC Pig borg (hoax) announced by T.Mummert
Mar 1992 rec.games.netrek created
Mar 1992 First INL championship: Team Wizard (CMU) over Team Akira
(CMU), 13-7
Apr 1992 UDP finalized; clients and servers become widely available
May 1992 pledit written by A.McFadden
May 1992 Sunscreamer (F.Gallo) appears on rec.games.netrek
May 1992 IBL formed by J.Nelson
Jun 1992 Original METASERVER, by E.Mehlhaff, up on kermit.berkeley.edu
and sickdog.cs.berkeley.edu
Jun 1992 Game recorder patches written by D.Swazey
Jun 1992 trekhopd written by A.McFadden
Jun 1992 INL council formed
Jul 1992 XNetrekM (first METASERVER client) written by T.Hadley
Jul 1992 Netrek Hockey invented by T.Chang, up on bronco.ece.cmu.edu
Aug 1992 MetaServerII, by A.McFadden, up on charon.amdahl.com
Aug 1992 Official INL server v1.0 released by R.Jones
Aug 1992 Grandfather borg released by D.Teo
Aug 1992 INL championship: Arrogant Assholes (CMU) and Team Rankscum
(CMU) unable to schedule game; declare themselves
co-winners. (AA beat RS 19-1 after semester break.)
Sep 1992 CMU Allstars vs Australia in Australia; CMU genocides
Sep 1992 Initial work on RSA by R.Jones
Sep 1992 Server game recorder/player written by B.Mediratta
Sep 1992 Frequently Offered Clever Suggestions (FOCS) list created
by A.McFadden
Oct 1992 RSA sources available
Oct 1992 Hadley client released by T.Hadley
Oct 1992 Moo client (Berkeley + Hadley clients) released by R.Weinstein
Nov 1992 ENL is born, run by L.Barbaresi
Nov 1992 First dogfight tournament held by J.Hsu on
bigdog.cs.berkeley.edu; won by Spaceace!
Nov 1992 RSA broken by [omitted]
Nov 1992 RSA v2.0 released
Dec 1992 INL championship: Side Salad (CMU) over The Team With No
Name (at large), 11-8 (OT)
Dec 1992 First Europe vs. Australia at-large tournament, played on
server at CMU; Europe genocides
Dec 1992 Moo client with "rabbit ear" bitmaps released by R.Muliana
Jan 1993 Paradise 1 announced by B.Gillespie
Feb 1993 Ricksmoo client (Rick's Moo client) released by R.Weinstein
Mar 1993 XSG support taken over by T.Hadley; XSG v2.0 released
Mar 1993 First "ping" client written by T.Hadley and L.Dickens
Mar 1993 First sound client released by N.Cook (first version
finished Dec 1992)
Apr 1993 BRM (Berkeley-Ricksmoo) client released by M.Noworolski
Apr 1993 First game played on PC with Linux over SLIP, by F.Gallo
Apr 1993 RSA finally spreads
May 1993 Original reserved.c posted to rec.games.netrek
May 1993 SHORT_PACKETS modifications written by H.Wengler
May 1993 mucus.l written by A.McFadden to honor Da Pig
May 1993 Netrek article appears in the San Jose Mercury News
May 1993 INL championship: Swiss system, Looney Tunes (CMU) victors
Jun 1993 Netrek client for Mac and NDB (Netrek Display Bridge) released
by J.Hsu and J.Wu
Jun 1993 Vanilla server release announced by D.Gosselin
Jul 1993 guzzler server sources released by N.Trown
Jul 1993 USA to Europe backbone expanded from 2Mb/s to 34Mb/s
Jul 1993 Paradise 2.0 announced by B.Gillespie
Aug 1993 INL championship: WHATever (CMU) over Will Riot For Food (LA),
11-8 (OT)
Sep 1993 ANL (Australian Netrek League) formed by D.Yee; first season
begins
Sep 1993 RSA key utilities written by T.Hadley
Sep 1993 RomaBerkMoo client released by S.Sheldon
Oct 1993 Server RSA update program written by N.Trown
Oct 1993 RSA public keys broadcast via MetaServerII
Nov 1993 Netrek article appears in December issue of Wired magazine
Nov 1993 A.McFadden gets kinda bored and decides to write Netrek history
Nov 1993 Second annual dogfight tournament held; won by FillInTheBlank
Nov 1993 COW-lite client released by K.Powell
Dec 1993 MetaServerII moves from charon.amdahl.com to
metaserver.ecst.csuchico.edu
Dec 1993 Player "timeprod" field overflows 32 bits on calvin.usc.edu
Mar 1994 Maintaince of vanilla distribution taken over by J.Cameron
due to N.Trown's graduation
Jun 1995 Netrek home page revived by J.Pirnie
Jul 1995 European Metaserver opens at carrier.cs.vu.nl
May 1995 timeprod overflows 32 bits on bigbang.astro.indiana.edu.
Oct 1995 timeprod overflows 32 bits on wormhole.ecst.csuchico.edu.
Dec 1995 Netrek home page move from J.Pirnie's site to D.Grant's site (http://www.cycor.ca/TCave/netrek.html)
Jan 1996 INL home page and Statsboy page merge to http://indigo2.medeng.bgsm.edu/~ahn/INL/
Names found above, with a summary of major accomplishments:
L.Barbaresi (Luca Barbaresi): ran the ENL (European Netrek League) J.Cameron (James Cameron): maintainer of vanilla source distribution. T.Chang (Terence Chang): started bronco server, invented Iggy, invented Netrek Hockey, discovered Ogging as an art form, invented Top Gun mode, tested original UDP code N.Cook (Neil Cook): wrote first sound client J.Daleske (John Daleske): co-author of original Empire D.Davis (David Davis): author of Trek82 and co-author of Trek83 J.Diachun (Justin Diachun): wrote the Helix borg L.Dickens (Leonard Dickens): created & ran the NBR voting process J.Edwards (Jon Edwards): co-author of Xtrek III [omitted] (omitted so as not to encourage such things): infamous borg user; broke initial RSA authentication by patching the executing process J.Frain (Jerry Frain): helped with creation of KSU Galaxy server G.Fritz (Gary Fritz): co-author of updated Empire F.Gallo (Felix Gallo a/k/a Felix Ortony a/k/a Sunscreamer): lots of amusing rec.games.netrek posts, first game via PC+Linux+SLIP B.Gillespie (Brandon Gillespie): advocate and release coordinator of paradise servers D.Gosselin (Dave Gosselin): developed a vanilla server release D.Grant (Dennis Grant): Current Netrek home page maintainer C.Guthrie (Chris Guthrie): author of Xtrek and co-author of Trek83 T.Hadley (Tedd Hadley): tested original UDP code, set up base-practice server (among others) at UCI, wrote several clients, designed lots of server hacks, developed XSG v2.x from the v1.22 sources, wrote XNetrekM J.Hardwick (Jonathan Hardwick): maintained Netrek information archive D.Swazey (Dave Swazey): wrote client patches for first game recorder [Swazey was using Julian Ho's account; he is a/k/a Ensign ensign] T.Holub (Tom Holub): created alt.games.xtrek and rec.games.netrek, formed the INL, wrote & maintained FAQ lists J.Hsu (Jack Hsu): created & ran the first dogfight tournament, co-author of NDB and first Mac client, wrote Netrek transwarp code, developed "soccer" E.James (Ed James): wrote robots for Trek83, wrote parts of Xtrek R.Jones (Ray Jones): developed RSA, first INL server hack N.Lai (Nick Lai): author of ROBOTREK, co-author of Xtrek III C.Leres (Craig Leres): co-author of Conquest for VAX/VMS B.McCoy (Brett McCoy): author of KSU Chaos server A.McFadden (Andy McFadden): wrote XSG, wrote UDP code, adapted gw for UDP, wrote pledit, wrote trekhopd, wrote MetaServerII, wrote mucus.l, wrote & maintained FOCS list B.Mediratta (Bharat Mediratta): wrote server-side game recorder/player E.Mehlhaff (ERic Mehlhaff): wrote first Netrek borg, wrote METASERVER, wrote Berkeley client, wrote mynetd C.Miller (Chuck Miller): co-author of updated Empire R.Muliana (Rony Muliana): enhanced (?) Moo client T.Mummert (Todd Mummert): wrote pig borg, uncrowned winner of the Build a Better Borg wars J.Nelson (Jeff Nelson): author of Hydra, started the IBL M.Noworolski (J. Mark Noworolski): wrote BRM client, hacked on INL server S.Peltz (Steve Peltz): wrote tournament version of Empire J.Pirnie (Jamie Pirnie): revived Netrek home page and maintainer of factoryx servers. J.Poskanzer (Jef Poskanzer): co-author of Conquest for VAX/VMS K.Powell (Keven R. Powell): author of COW-lite client S.Sheldon (Steve Sheldon): author of RomaBerkMoo client D.Teo (David Teo): wrote gfborg N.Trown (Nick Trown): developed guzzler server sources, wrote RSA utilities, maintained RSA key list, maintained vanilla distribution, maintains US metaserver D.Tsang (Donald Tsang): created sturgeon-style server S.Silvey (Scott Silvey): Netrek co-author (added plasmas, different ship types, tractor beams, etc) K.Smith (Kevin Smith): Netrek co-author (changed to client/server, added X11 and GL support, ranks/DI, tmode) B.Verser (Brick A. Verser): worked on KSU Chaos server, ran the INL server for early league games S.Warner (Slias Warner): co-author of original Empire R.Weinstein (Rick Weinstein): wrote Moo client, eventually renamed it to ricksmoo to avoid confusion with rabbit-ear moo H.Wengler (Heiko Wengler): wrote SHORT_PACKETS mods J.Wu (Jiang Wu): co-author of NDB and first Mac client D.Yee (Danny Yee): founded ANL (Australian Netrek League) J.Young (Joseph F. Young): worked on KSU servers
fadden@amdahl.com