Netrek History Timeline

DATE

OCCURENCE

1960s

Pre-1968

Dark Ages

1968

PLATO system created

1970s

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

1980s

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

February 1986

X10.R3 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

X11.R2 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

Fall 1989

KSU Chaos server set up by B.McCoy and B.Verser

1990

Oct 1990

bronco.ece.cmu.edu server set up by T.Chang

Nov 1990

KSU Galaxy server built by J.Young and J.Frain

1991

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

1992

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

1993

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

1994

Mar 1994

Maintenance of vanilla distribution taken over by J.Cameron due to N.Trown's graduation

1995

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 http://indigo2.medeng.bgsm.edu/~ahn/INL/

Jan 18, 1995

End of Original McFadden/Trown Timeline