How long has your school had its network?

[riedquat]

When I started at my current location 11 years ago, there were 3 networks in place. The admin network comprising of a mixture of IBM PS/1 and PS/2 machines running MS DOS6.2 and Windows for Workgroups on a 4mbs token-ring network linked to a Netware 3.11 box. The 'main' school wide curriculum network comprising of various RM Nimbus 86, 186 and 286 machines linked to a pair of 286 and 386 based Nimbus servers. The 3rd network was 2 rooms containing 486SX 33's and Pentium 75's running MS DOS 6.22/Windows for Workgroups linked to a Netware 3.12 Pentium 120 Server.

During the first summer holiday, the Nimbus curriculum network was decommisioned and the second curriculum network was merged with a new network comprising of two ict suites and the library, these running Windows 95 on AMD K5-Pr166 linked to a Netware 4.1 Pentium MMX 200 Server.

 

The token ring admin network was eventually retired and replaced with cat5/5e although the original token ring cabling/MAU's are still in place and 'live'.

 

Prior to my joining the school I know there had been a RM Link 480Z C/PM based system at some point running off a RM 380Z twin 20Mb Winchester disk server as they were in my store cupboard when I arrived. There were also half a dozen BBC Micro and Masters dotted about the site although I can find no evidence of them ever being networked.

 

I also remember that prior to attending high-school myself, that particular school had just retired a room of networked Apple II's to move to RM 480Z's.

[kylewilliamson]

Imagine we've had a lan for a while - Netware lan up until December 1998 (when i joined the school), and have since had successive versions of ranger - 3.0 on nt4, 4.0 on 2000, 5.0 on 2003 etc in that time - although still the same 'domain'. We certianly had fibre to an outbuilding in 1996. (that fibre was replaced last year, after 10 years loyal service)

 

In terms of infrastructure, the whole backbone's been mostly replaced over the last 3-4 years with multimode fibre. The vast majority of desktop network points have been done at some point in that time too, although in places, there is older cat5.

 

I've been involved since 2002.

 

Kyle

[maniac]

Not too sure about the past of this school as pretty much everything that might have existed was long gone when I started. In it's current form the network's been here since august 06, when we replaced the 3yr old servers and rebuilt the domain from the ground up to get rid of many major faults on the old system.

 

By looking at the cabling, I suspect they have had an RM network of some sort in the past, as there's RM cabling in 2 rooms on the 2rd floor. I also know there's been a lot of changes over the years, as there's 4 rooms in this school fully wired as ICT suites that are now dance/drama rooms. what a waste of perfectly good cabling! There's also traces of old BNC networking in places, although a lot of this has been removed during building works.

 

I've been involved here since March 2006.

 

Mike.

[gwendes]

despite the fact there was nothing you could do on them apart from word processing

 

I can't let that one slide! Nothing you could do???

 

My dad bought an A3000 in about 1990 (I was 6) and installed a 2MB RAM upgrade! I could write floppy discs to RAM then back to floppy... it rocked!

My secondary school, a little behind the times, had a suite of Acorns and I was very 'familiar' with them by that point.

 

If you think they can't do anything you obviously never played games (Lemmings, Mad Professor, Chuck Rock, Pac-Mania, Lotus Turbo Challenge, Repton etc), programmed in BASIC (F12) or used Talking Pendown!

 

Never had an econet but wanted it more than anything in the world! I used to spend hours with our BBC Micro writing little programs and adventure games... the mark of a true geek - typing before I could write

[Butuz]

Old school

 

Used to while away many an hour making games and stuff in STOS on my Dads Atari ST

 

Andrew

[StewartKnight]

We had networked BBC computers here, using (I think) a 5pin DIN socket!

[srochford]

Econet had some amazing features for the time.

 

*remote gave full remote control of the other machine - like VNC etc but 20 years earlier!

 

Built into the firmware was a whole set of stuff to let you do things across the network - forgotten most of it now but I suspect I've still got the "advanced programming guide" somewhere with all the calls in it.

 

The most amazing thing about the original file server software was that it was all written in BASIC so you could see how it worked and get tips for how to cram everything into the tiny RAM.

[Geoff]

http://www.heyrick.co.uk/econet/

[sidewinder]

I can't let that one slide! Nothing you could do???

 

My dad bought an A3000 in about 1990 (I was 6) and installed a 2MB RAM upgrade! I could write floppy discs to RAM then back to floppy... it rocked!

My secondary school, a little behind the times, had a suite of Acorns and I was very 'familiar' with them by that point.

 

If you think they can't do anything you obviously never played games (Lemmings, Mad Professor, Chuck Rock, Pac-Mania, Lotus Turbo Challenge, Repton etc), programmed in BASIC (F12) or used Talking Pendown!

 

haha...missed this

 

Dont get me wrong, I love Acorns, I just meant at school there was no applications, nothin apart from word processing!

Generally though they were cool machines

 

I do remember other students who obv had them at home used to bring in games or could run cool little programs but as I only had a BBC Micro at home (yes in the mid 90's - my parents wouldnt buy me anything else!) I couldnt really join in

[gwendes]

haha...missed this

 

Dont get me wrong, I love Acorns, I just meant at school there was no applications, nothin apart from word processing!

Generally though they were cool machines

 

I do remember other students who obv had them at home used to bring in games or could run cool little programs but as I only had a BBC Micro at home (yes in the mid 90's - my parents wouldnt buy me anything else!) I couldnt really join in

 

LOL.. We used to play games all the time - I had friends I used to exchange 'backups' with by post and write little programs for it (And the BBC Micro) Excellent machines...

 

I've had enough of XP/Server2003 - anyone else want to run a school on RISC machines? We'll call it a project school, get funding... *decends into dream state*

[gshaw]

Think my current place has had the network since 2001 \ 2002 judging by the really old server kit we cleared out a few years back... think the machines were PIIIs at the time.

 

My school had the network in some form just after I started there in 1997, although in the early days Encarta CD swapping on Win3.1 machines was the norm... then followed up by a network set up by some consultants (I remember the custom login screen!) then it went onto NT \ Win95. I remember feeling quite proud of myself in year 10 after helping the NM set up some new rooms... knew what job I'd be doing right away

 

As for retro networks... I remember BBC Econet networks at a youth club when I was a kid. Set in the back of an art cupboard you had to do a weird key combo to read the disk from the server and then Frogger time

 

For an even more retro network I have at home, in original box a ZX Spectrum Interface 1 network \ printer expansion port circa 1982 Also includes 100K mass storage Microdrives... quality stuff!

 

As for Acorns... I love the old RISC PC and A3000 machines, grew up with em at primary school and tried to buy a 2nd hand one instead of a PC at the time but ended up getting my trusty P166 from Comet instead. Pendown and the Smile games were great time wasters... Taxi anyone? Got a RISC PC at home amongst the retro kit collection I've ended up accumulating over time

Edited September 11, 2009 by gshaw

[grumpy_git]

I believe the first "network" was in the early 1990s when one of the maths teachers set a few machines down the side of a maths classroom.

 

In 1998 the first two proper ICT rooms were put in (but for 4 years, 'computer studies' had been taught with said few machines!). 2002 another room opened, 2003 upgraded to CC3.

 

Oh, and we had an admin network from 1993ish which was provided by the County Council. Several of the office staff still shudder when it's mentioned. In 2005 it was removed and normal network machines put in. Although, the contents of the old server's HDD were dumped onto the office staff shared area, and there it remains. So, if ever we need to find a letter to a parent about not having the right shoes dated 1994...

Edited September 11, 2009 by grumpy_git

[pete]

The earliest archeological evidence consists of:

 

BBC micros

BNC jacks in reception

A Deputy Head who twitches when you mention Netware.

Said netware "server" (dual cpus with less than <100mhz each).

SIMS user-created files from 1994.

[azrael78]

I have no idea how long we've had a network - before the time I started as a junior tech.

 

Probably around 1996 - from what was left when I started, it was all 10BaseT old BNC stuff.

Server being NT 3.51 - rebooted (and rebuilt) almost weekly from what my old boss used to tell me.

 

I started employment in 2001 and have been there ever since.

 

Now there's no trace of BNC, NT 3.51 and it's truely come on in leaps and bounds in the last 6 years.

In 2003 I was given the dubious task of planning it's current form, doing all the AD provisioning and such and that was the first time I'd ever HEARD of Active Directory. (I'd heard of LDAP tho)

 

Now it's working well - or as well as any school network can work given the user population.

 

Our next big 'jump' is to go Server 2008 R2 sometime and then Windows 7 sometime after.

Many older members of staff still remember the mess it was waaay back... do they say it's better now? Nope... to do that would defeat the purpose

 

Az