How long has your school had its network?

[sidewinder]

And how long have you been part of it?

 

Ours was 'opened' I believe in 2001. Before that it was standalone computers or the 'high tech' library had a suite of computers all sharing an ISDN line (which still sits on the wall to this day)

 

Ive been here since early 2005 and its changed enourmously in that time alone

 

What prompted me to make this was that I just found some old powerpoints from the network opening ceromoney - fascinating seeing pictures and just how much its changed in 6 years

[_Bat_]

"how long has the school had its network?"

 

Absolutely no idea how long either have had theirs. The CURRENT network (talking about the vast bulk of the hardware) in my one school has been set up for about 1.75 years and the other school I have recently replaced all the curriculum machines in and am still in the process of doing so.

 

But as for how long they have had a network operational, I have no idea. I do not know much technical history of either of the schools.

 

"How long have you been part of it?"

 

One year and three months.

[Andi]

We fitted a brand new network on the existing cabling/fibre architecture coming up to 2 years ago. Basically we bought new servers, wiped CSE off the old system and setup a vanilla 2003 network with XP clients. Eveyrone is much happier with the new system compared to the old as it is much more industry standard and so far much more reliable.

 

*touches wood*

[CyberNerd]

I turned off an old ThinNet repeater that I found in a cupboard a few months ago - circa 1996?

[dave.81]

The first networking side begain back in 1997 when me and some other "geeks" offered to help share the 56k internet across 3 pc's instead of one. Then in 2000 we built a network across 2 of the boarding house's and 2 teaching buildings and installed our first server.

 

Now every room has at least one point.

[Geoff]

The earliest network I remember being here was when I was a student. Back in 1991. There was a PC based Netware 3.11 10base2 network in two rooms (approx 40 machines, a mix of 386 and 486 based Elonexs.) The other two IT rooms a (much older, I presume late '80s) RM Nimbus network of similar size.

 

It all got chucked out in 1996 when the current IT block was built. Although we still have some relics from that (and earlier times) to scare and confuse pupils with.

[Halfmad]

All network hardware (and servers) was replaced in January 2006, runs like a dream with several gig connections where I need them although most clients are still on 100mb.

 

We still have a few Windows 95/98 clients but these are so old I don't really support them anymore. You have to draw the line somewhere and frankly soon I'll do the same with Windows 2000 - although at least it's stable and controllable easily via AD the same as the XP clients.

[Butuz]

I'll have to check - but I believe the Head of ICT had several BBC's networked together some time in the 80's, we then had an RM380z network, RM Connect 2 was installed in 1998, RM Connect 3 was installed in 2002 - and all is running well!

 

Andrew

[webman]

When I started as a pupil at the school in 1998 there were no networked computers, just a room of standalone Windows 3.11 machines and a single Windows 95 computer.

 

The original RM Connect 2.4 network was installed in around 1999 with 30 worksations. The new and current RM Community Connect 3 network was installed in December 2002 which has served us well and continues to do so.

[elsiegee40]

Our network was installed in Jan 2006 and formally made available to all a couple of months later when I arrived.

[sidewinder]

Actually I assume ours had some suites of Acorns or something in the early 90's, as I have found some old relics, so technically it probably did have a network of some sort

[neo-fight]

hey

 

you wanted to see the size of the net work at the uni i just graduated from, good lord it must have had 35000 network links on a t1 connections. absolutely massive. go UCLan

 

NEo

[ChrisC]

Here the network has been around for around 11ish years (in it's simplest form).

 

I joined as a student in 1998, and have been working here since 2005.

It's changed a hell of a lot

 

Chris

[Pottsey]

When I was cleaning out the storeroom and looking around I found the old style pre cat5 Ethernet cables. I think you call them Coaxial cables with BNC connectors, bit before my time never was sure on the name. Along with all the old style hubs. So who knows when this school first had a network must have been a very long time ago.

[Geoff]

When I was cleaning out the storeroom and looking around I found the old style pre cat5 Ethernet cables. I think you call them Coaxial cables with BNC connectors, bit before my time never was sure on the name. Along with all the old style hubs. So who knows when this school first had a network must have been a very long time ago.

 

10base2 aka BNC aka CheaperNet.

[Iain]

I'm not sure about the school where I am now, but I remember my primary school back in 1985/6 (when I was 9) having around 30 BBC Micros on an Econet network, with an Acorn Filestore server and a 40MB Winchester Hard Drive!

[pete]

Not sure how long really, I know that it was here from at least early '91 onwards and the deputy head responsible for sims still has netware flashbacks - we found the old netware fileserver in a cupboard a while ago.

[mighty.grey.eagle]

The earliest network I remember being here was when I was a student. Back in 1991. There was a PC based Netware 3.11 10base2 network in two rooms (approx 40 machines, a mix of 386 and 486 based Elonexs.) The other two IT rooms a (much older, I presume late '80s) RM Nimbus network of similar size.

 

It all got chucked out in 1996 when the current IT block was built. Although we still have some relics from that (and earlier times) to scare and confuse pupils with.

 

I object to being called a relic! But, to answer the original question - 1984 with a RM 480Z network. BNC connectors. thin ethernet and a 10MB Winchester (hard drive to the young ones) to store the work from 16 stations and a couple of GCSE groups. The operating system was a networked version of CP/M called CP/Net. The "server" was basically a 380Z (Z80 processor) but I can't remember how much memory. Probably only 16 or 32K.

 

Now if you want to talk about paper tapes and writing your own boot programs, then burning them on to a PROM, I'm your man. But not now, I need to take my tablets and have a sleep........

[localzuk]

The current network infrastructure is partly 4 years old and partly newer (in bits).

 

I believe that pretty much everything else was ripped out then (well, most of it - we still have a few bnc ports around the place and a few random cat3 cables but not used).

 

I remember the first network at the high school I went to, it consisted of apple plus computers, apple classic computers linked with appletalk cables... But then, you can't really call that a network.

 

I then remember building a network in 1999/2000 (when I was 14/15) from a bunch of 486/pentium 1 machines using BNC/thinnet cards and cabling, which grew to 20 machines and changed over to cat5 with a linux server running mandrake 6, then NT4, then back to Mandrake It was more stable than the newly installed ethernet mac network in the it dept... (Eugh, Novell netware was awful!)

[srochford]

Wow! I feel *really* old reading this stuff by such youngsters :-)

 

First network I set up was at the end of 1983 - a BBC Econet. About 20 stations with a print server and file server (grand name; just a standard BBC B with 2 x floppy discs attached). Econet was a nightmare of cabling - the connectors were standard 5 pin Audio DINs and very fragile.

 

I moved to a different school in January 1985 (Hounslow Manor) and they already had a network of RML480z computers (again with a floppy based file server)

 

First Ethernet network was 1991 - coax (sometimes called "thin ethernet" or 10Base2) and fibre between buildings.

 

I've been at this College for 9 years; the network has grown organically from coax to cat 3, cat 5, cat and fibre over a long time. Oldest bits are a couple of 2Mb leased lines between Wembley, Willesden and Kilburn; these terminate with big AUI (Attachment Unit Interface) connectors - scary things compared to UTP plugs!

[speckytecky]

Our Headteacher used to run the whole show here and back in circa 2001 we had a suite of 6 running off an old RM server sharing an ISDN line which provided a SIMS link to the Office as well. There was also around about a dozen standalones accessing the net through wired and some wireless connections.

 

In 2002 the Head pushed for and achieved major changes including an ICT suite and Library dropped into former redundant courtyards. The suite houses a win 2K server and 32 XP Pro workstations with CRT monitors. We have IWB in each classroom and the main hall. We are getting Air Con for the suite soon as last year things were into meltdown and now we are looking toward the next step - what do we replace everything with?ooking

[sidewinder]

Wow, some of your places have had stuff for ages!

 

The earliest computers I remember at school (if you discount the 1 BBC Micro we had at primary school) was the 2 suites of Acorns in secondary school. I was fascinated with them, despite the fact there was nothing you could do on them apart from word processing

[greenfieldsupport]

Does anyone use 1gbps connections to the clients yet?

 

or just key locations.. e.g. servers, your own office etc?

[Pottsey]

Not really we don’t need it yet but we are a small school. When ever we get new PC’s I make sure they have 1gbs network cards and any new switch’s also have support but it’s more of a slow phase in then actually being any use.

[dave.81]

Currently it's just the servers and my office that have 1gbps connection, have just replaced a load of switchs and stuck with 100mb with a couple 1gb ports. Not enough of our pc's have 1gb network cards to make it worth spending the extra. Maybe next time around in a couple of years.