........................................................................ .................................``````................................. ........................:+sydmNMMMMMMMMMMNmdys+:........................ ..................`:ohNMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMNho:`.................. ...............-odMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMdo-............... ............`omMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMmo`............ ...........sMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMs........... ........`sMMMMMMMMMMMMMMNho:. +MMMMMMMMdssNMMMMMMMMddMMMMMMMMs`........ .......-mMMMMMMMMMMhys+. yMMMMmo. r+MMMMMNs. :MMMMMMMMm-....... ......:NMMMMMMMMMd. `/ymm` yMMd: ` dMMMm+` :NMMMMMMMMN:...... .....-NMMMMMMMMMM- .odMMMMs /Mm:./dM. hMMh: -hMMMMMMMMMMMN-..... .....dMMMMMMMMMMN `/smMMMMMMy :N+./mMN: `dMd-r-s- `yMMMMMMMMMMMMMMd..... ....:MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMo :s`-dMMN- .md:./dh. /NMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM:.... ....oMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMN: `-`sMMMd` -h: /mm: `yMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMo.... ....oMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMd. :mMMMo -: :mMs .mMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMo.... ....:MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMo sMMMm- -hMN: -NMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM:.... .....mMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMm- .mMMMs `sMMN- .NMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMm..... .....-MMMMMMMMMMMMMMs` /NMMN: /NMMM+ yMMMMNy/oMMMMMMMMMMMMM-..... ....../MMMMMMMMMMMMM- sMMMMs .dMMMMM` yNmy:`+mMMMMMMMMMMMMM/...... .......-NMMMMMMMMMMMm--dMMMMMh oMMMMMMM: :yNMMMMMMMMMMMMMN-....... ........`yMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMdNMMMMMMMMNs/:+yNMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMy`........ ...........yMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMy........... .............sNMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMNs............. ...............:smMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMms:............... .................../sdMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMds/................... ......................../oyhmNMMMMMMMMMMMMNmhyo/........................ ...............................``......``............................... ........................................................................ ...................dMMMMMMMMb..dMP.dMMMMb...aMMMb...dMMMb............... ..................dMP"dMP"dMP.amr.dMP.dMP.dMP"VMP.dMP".VP............... .................dMP.dMP.dMP.dMP.dMP.dMP.dMP......VMMMb................. ................dMP.dMP.dMP.dMP.dMP.dMP.dMP.aMP.dP..dMP................. ...............dMP.dMP.dMP.dMP.dMP.dMP..VMMMP"..VMMMP".................. ........................................................................ ...............Murdoch.INformation.and.Computer.Society................. ........................................................................ MINCS. -======- * Introduction - What was MINCS? Who were we? What did we do? * Versioning * Statistics, numbers and other stuff * Old MINCS Web sites archived on archive.org * SIGS - Special Interest Groups * The Last Council * In the beginning .. Ye-olde Times of Yore * LAN Social and Inter-varcity events. * MINCS Systems. * MINCS Places. * Some notable names to wax nostalgia * MINCS and MITS. A one-sided history. * Introduction -=============- What was MINCS? MINCS was the Murdoch INformation and Computer Society. We were a bunch of people that had a lot of fun, organised a lot of events, shared a lot of knowledge and met a lot of interesting people. We got involved in many Open Source projects. We had fun doing it. This archive and file is an attempt to document the good, the sad and the fun times MINCS had whilst also trying to keep a record of what, who, how and when before it's all lost to memory. MINCS had a number of SIGS. Bound together they were MINCS as a whole. MINCS ran it's course and a critical mass graduated, moved on or away and there was insufficient people with enough time and Tu-it's to keep it running. Also things had moved online and people began to have broadband at home more often and there was fewer people turning up for events. MINCS had quite a few install-fests. BSD and Linux. What isn't MINCS? MINCS was never MITS. MITS started as an attempted take-over of MINCS by a member of staff and a student (Yes we remember you 'Darth Blondie'). The student was evicted from MINCS after unconscionable skull-duggery and lies were discovered and the subsequent verbal abuse of the MINCS board during an AGM. For over two years, MITS and MINCS existed concurrently. * Stats, numbers and other semi-useless factoids -===============================================- The peak membership of MINCS was 168 people in early 2005. The largest "Lan Social Event" was 3-DEC-2005 and there was 118 attendees. Note: It took over a fornight for the 'bouquet' of pizza to leave Uridium's Falcon and Omne's Exa after multiple trips to Eagle Boys in a valiant attempt to feed the great unwashed (it was summer too!). Note Note: It's always fun ordering that many pizza's. First it's thought to be a prank. Then it's realised to be too many for one shop to handle and thirdly it's a logistical nightmare to make sure the right pizza's are created at three separate shops at an approximately central time, collected and poked in front of correct humans. (But I'm allergic to pineapple!) ..etc. * Old MINCS Web sites archived on archive.org -============================================- - http://web.archive.org/web/20060819010721/http://inferno.murdoch.edu.au/ - http://web.archive.org/web/20060819133436if_/http://mincs.murdoch.edu.au/news.php - http://web.archive.org/web/20060819161847/http://elmo.murdoch.edu.au/ - http://web.archive.org/web/20040928114813/http://alice.murdoch.edu.au/ * Versioning -===========- The inital version of this document was found amoungst jeff0's personal datum after his death. It was sorted by Omne and Uridium and the initial set of documents collated. Four known people have contributed to it over time. Currently Uridium curates it. * SIGS -=====- SIG's or "Special Interest Groups" were essentially a cluster of people that had a common interest with a common contact person. Some of the SIGS that had more than a few people: * OpenVMS - VMS users, admins and fans. * BSD - BSD Unix group. Net/Open/Free/Mir/$etc * Linux - Mostly Debian and Ubuntu fans. * Web tech - Web technology. Mostly php & html skills swap. * Gamers - Generic Gamers. Yep. All those guys. * WoW'ers - World of Warcraft people. * Quakers - Quake fans. Not the religious types. * SysAdmin - Formerly infrastructure. People that ran systems. * Lancers - Freelancer fans. * Pizza - Pizza officionardos. * Beer - Joke SIG so Pizza people could drink something and hold more meetings with the Pizza guys. * Security - InfoSec fans. Frequently they just hacked MINCS systems and made life "interesting" for anyone in SysAdmin. * O/S - Generic Operating System Fans. * Haiku - OpenBeOS/Haiku fans. (Were they different from O/S?) * MUUG - UNIX usrs (HP-UX/AIX/Solaris/Irix/etc). Mostly a group that liked to throw verbal rocks at OSS guys. Most were probably also in the Trolls SIG. * Lurkers - Forum Lurkers Guild. * Trolls - Forum Trolls Guild. (There always seemed to be a *LOT* more than the -1 membership number). * Wintendo - MicroSoft fans. (Was there ever more than just you Omne?) * C/C++ - C/C++ and Assembler fans. * $Anon - The anony crew (tm) that late one night hacked the UWA electric sign to greet UCC in early '06. * SocEng - Social Engineering enthusiests. * LiSPers - "People with a speech impediment that enjoy programming and boldly profess their unbridled lust for the generous use of round brackets in code." * ... many more that came and went, merged had fun and ran their course and a couple that shouldn't be mentioned in polite company. ;) * In the beginning ... (Let there be light!) -===========================================- MINCS predates these guys and went through a decline or slow bust period prior to 2001. MINCS disbanded September 2006. From Uridium: I was always drooling over an adhoc machine room in East Academic III that was never occupied with a lot of really old systems running in it. I couldn't find out any of the contacts for the people looking after these systems. There was a bunch of lounge chairs, tables on the other side. This was the first MINCS clubroom. I arrived there about 2001/2002 to do post-grad. After a lot of searching for a contact to this room for a couple of months suddenly a guy turned up with a key and was pushing an old VAX out the door. This was how I met jeff0. He was on the MINCS and student council and was at this stage studying at Curtin and was a member of Curtin's computer club COMSA. He wanted his system back and MINCS had slowly puttered out. The early days he recalled that MINCS had about thirty people in it and they were all UNIX/VMS nerds. This was the mid 90's. A notice that the room was being decomissioned and turned into a staff and lounge had apparently arrived, he was removing his system. I got a tour of their old room and took some photo's. Some really interesting old systems (AlphaMicro, VAX, DG, Burroughs, and "THE STINKIN PC" (according to the sign). I asked for contacts and was told that they'd all graduated and the mantle hadn't been passed. I said I was pretty interested in it. Jeff then said "there's another guy also.. you need to meet Sclozza.. but I'm out, do wish you guys well though, really I do and there was some great times and hacks". So it seemed to me that MINCS had a good history. It was renamed from MCC to MINCS somewhere in 1998. We still have the original and newer sites archived somewhere. MCC was simply "Murdoch Computing Club". The machine room was cleaned out by murdoch uni staff (Once they made the "scary" power setups safe) and the room converted. Sad, but things end and it had been unmanaged for nearly two years apparently. I met Sclozza and we got to work and quickly the club grew after some flyer drops. I was doing postgrad and was in a couple of shared offices and had room for a few systems at the uni already so to add a few more was no sweat to start a few club machines. I think Omne and Delerium who shared the office with me were extremely tollerant. Jeff (jeff0) became a frequent visitor to club events and SIG meetings and was an honoury life member. Sadly, he passed away around 2005 rather suddenly due to a motor vehicle accident. Harbinger (Hi Mike!) downstairs in MIS gave us a subnet, a 10/100 switch port a stern warning about system security and how dearly he did not want to *EVER* get any work generated by our systems being compromised (fair enough too) .. and we were away and running. * LAN Social and Inter-varcity events. -=====================================- LAN Social Events. These things were a meeting of all the SIGs and a few trusted blow-ins from other Uni computer clubs and such. They were a free-form event (ie: Nothing was scheduled beyond the Pizza order off pizza.mincs.net) at 1930. They generally ran midday to midnight on a set day. People came and performed the following activities: - Played computer games. - Wandered about and gas-bagged. - Held AGM's and EAGM's. - Consumed pizza, fizzy sugar enriched bevvy's. - Oggled at the red-bull booth-babes on a few occasions. - Consumed red-bull (hey.. it was free!). W007'd loudly. - Got help with computer troubles (Linux/BSD/Windows/etc) - Showed off their pretty UNIX workstation they picked up from Ross's disposal auctions for 50$. - Extolled the virtues of their pretty new UNIX workstation and it's esoteric architecture. (Compared to your Crap Computer! (tm)) - Hacked on some code. - Avoided John's m68k asm questions or shoved them onto uridium (Thanks jeff0 .. I think). - Avoided Darkwing Dave trying to get someone to do his assignments. - Trolled jeff0 with telling darkwing to go pester jeff0 for help. (Revenge is both sweet and ultimately very colourful. Pass the popcorn and wait for jeff0 to explode!) - Gaffa-taped people to things. - Fiddled with hardware. - Fiddled with networking. - Tried to not *break* said network. (DAAAAAAVE!) - Gaffa-taped people to things .. oh I said that already.^H^H^H^H^H - Marvelled at Sclozza's pizza ordering software running on the Sun in the middle of the floor. - Generally had lots of clean nerdy fun. - Felt creeped out by Hippo watching the WindowsXP "Better for business presentation" and his murderous facial expressions and laughter (.. kill hippo! Kill it with fire!). - Met up with other SIG people and explored some odd-ball hardware (SPARC, PA-RISC, VAX..etc) - Swapped hardware. Flogged off old stuff. - Demonstrated off your BlurryCam (tm) prowess. - Socially engineered. (Sclozza with telephone plan sales to india on skype on the projector anyone?) .. too funny. - Basked in Hippo's Superior Presence. (you had to be there for this one.. gold!) The idea was to bring all the people with any interest in computers (not just CS and IT people) at Murdoch together and create a bit of community. Have some fun. Learn stuff. Unwind. We had several Intervarcity LAN events with attendees from UCC, COMSA and SCISSA over the years. Some were co-op events and we attended their events also.. though some of the COMSA LANS went for 3 days (!). The good news was that all the systems were accessible over PARNET so it was quick to show someone at another uni something you were knocking up and fiddling on. UCC were great for this before they bought religion in the form of ubuntu. There was something for everyone! Even if you rolled up with a VAX and vt220 there was still help getting NetHack to compile, run and access to the MUD's and MOO's. Check the "fliers" dir where some of the fliers advertising events that were mailed and printed out were saved. If someone has any that are missing please get in touch with some of the old MINCS crew. A word on BlurryCam. BlurryCam was a tradition. Initially not so much. Back in the days when a 2MP digicam was something to be extremely impressed with, they didn't work terribly quickly so you needed to hold them extremely still. Frequently in low-light of MINCS LAN's and such, there would be blurryness. Thus was born the "BlurryCam" skill. After a while.. people would take deliberately blurry shots. Or later shots of things such as "power cord" or "ammos foot" or "hippos stomach", or someone gaffa-taped to a wall. These have all been stored for posterity in the BlurryCam directory along with pics usually taken before or during the wind-down of LAN's (we were often too flat-out during the events to take BlurryCam shots). Check the "BlurryCam" dir for some example photo's of events. A note on Piracy. It happened. It was explicitely discouraged by the club. It happened anyway. What can you do more than tell people no. Alcohol and drugs were forbidden and thankfully there was only two forced ejections in all the years. * MINCS Systems. -==============- There was a lot of systems MINCS had in the old times. During our time the following systems were fondly remembered: *inferno: O/S : HP-UX 11i v1 Model : HP-9000 G40 (originally) CPU : 2x 96Mhz PA-7200 + 24x4 way ganged Vector Processor RAM : 768mb Year : 1991 for the original G40. Later for upgrades. Disk : 118gb usable after VxFS double striped parity raid. Hostname: inferno.murdoch.edu.au Purpose : - IRC chat. - Numerical processing. - C/C++, Fortran-95 fiddling. - Hosting archives which included: - Nekoware (SGI) - HP/UX freeware - Linux dists. (Debian, Ubuntu, Slakware) - BSD Dists. (OpenBSD/NetBSD/FreeBSD/MirBSD) Misc : Inferno was heavily used as a dogs-body shell box and also the numerical processing units students who often joined MINCS initially to use it instead of the much abused Pentium4 provided by MIS. It was also the primary NFS and kerberos server for the non-resolving *.mincs.net systems. *elmo: O/S : NetBSD 3.x onwards. CPU : 2x 350Mhz Pentium-II Descuttes. RAM : 384mb Year : 1998? Donated. Disk : 2x 40gb SCSI Hostname: elmo.murdoch.edu.au Purpose : - IRC chat. - Mail list. - General email. - C/C++ and Ada. - Trolling attracting Hippo's wrath. Misc : Hippo ran this machine and some of the other Seasame St gang systems. We needed mailing list services and general email with spam protection. Hippo said "Okay" and went off to inhale "Life with Qmail" book. Returned two days later and elmo was born. Commonly, this machine was known by the pseudo: "Acer is a 4-letter word!" -- Who donated this? *cookie: O/S : Slakware Linux. (version?) Model : HP Netserver 200LP? 300LP? CPU : 2x 200Mhz Pentium Pro RAM : 512mb Year : 1992. Hostname: mincs.murdoch.edu.au Purpose : E3 webserver. Apache. Etc. Club Forums. Host system for "THE RIVER OF FLAME!" *mvax: O/S : OpenVMS 6.2 through 7.2 Model : VAX4000 M200 CPU : KA660 (About 5VUP/MIPS) RAM : 64mb Year : ???? Disk : 2x 3.2gb DSSI (in shadow set) 2x 380mb DSSI (quorum disks) Hostname: mvax.mincs.net (10.0.0.10) Purpose : Front end VMS system and VAX-Cluster controller. DCL shell environment and compilers. Licenses graciously provided by Compaq/HP. *earnie: O/S : OpenVMS 6.2 through 7.3 Model : MicroVAX 3100m10e CPU : KA41-D (CVAX+) (About 3-3.5VUP/MIPS) RAM : 32mb Year : 1993 (?) Disk : Diskless Hostname: earnie.mincs.net (hippo typo'd.. still have irc logs!) Purpose : VAXCluster node. Dogsbody and hacking. Do it here first. Slow system. Annoyingly people played lots of nethack here. *bert: O/S : OpenVMS 7.3 and FreeBSD [5,6].x Windows NT4.0 (tri-boot) Model : AlphaServer 1000 4/266 (not -A) pedestal CPU : 266Mhz DEC Alpha AXP EV4S 21064A RAM : 512mb Year : 1994 (?) Hostname: bert.mincs.net (10.0.0.29) Purpose : First Alpha. Rule was, if noone was on it and you wanted to boot to $other_OS you checked no logged in users or jobs running, announce in email your were booting elsewhere, then later returned the boot to VMS. This was done by script running off elmo's serial port as the console. *blueballs: O/S : SGI IRIX 5.3 .. 6.5.18f Model : Silicon Graphics Inc Indy. CPU : 164Mhz MIPS R4600SC (Overclocked 133SC). RAM : 256mb Year : 1994 Disk : 18gb Hostname: blueballs.mincs.net Purpose : IRIX fun and MIPSPro compilers for C/C++, Fortran, etc. *fuggly: O/S : Sun Solaris 7 Model : OpenTec Ultra-2 (Ruggedised Ultra-2) CPU : 2x 167Mhz Sun UltraSPARC-1 RAM : 512mb Disk : 2x 9.1gb UltaSCSI (SCA/SA80's). Year : 1997 Hostname: fuggly.mincs.net Purpose : Compiling. Solaris. 64bit experience and ipv6 early standards. *pretty: O/S : MacOS-X 10.0 .. 10.3 Model : Power Macintosh G4 (Sawtooth) RAM : 384mb Year : 1999? Disk : 60gb IDE Hostname: pretty.mincs.net Purpose : Lets see what these new Apple RISC Unix-like workstations are like. Ewww! oh it can burn CDROM's also. That's handy. *stinkpot: O/S : FreeBSD 4.x .. ? Model : Compaq slimline corp desktop with dodgey caps CPU : 300mhz Intel Pentium-2 Celeron RAM : 256mb Disk : 40gb + 20gb IDE Hostname: stinkpot.mincs.net Purpose : FreeBSD guys building stuff. Tracking and building from source. Many times the mobo CAPS were hand replaced. :( *cranky: O/S : NetBSD 4.x .. ? Model : Compaq slimline corp desktop with no dodgey caps CPU : 466mhz Intel Pentium-2 Celeron RAM : 128mb Disk : 10gb IDE and rest off NFS. Hostname: cranky.mincs.net Purpose : Similar to the FreeBSD system stinkpot, this machine was heavily used by NetBSD guys building stuff, tracking releases and pkgsrc etc. It was also a non-prod test for elmo updates. *alice: O/S : Debian Linux Model : Compaq slimline corp desktop CPU : 466mhz Intel Pentium 2 Celeron RAM : 128mb Disk : 10gb IDE Hostname: alice.murdoch.edu.au Purpose : This was originally the Alice chatbot experiments server. Later it simply became a place with a couple of dozen post-grad students web pages. It was also one of the NAT gateway boxes for the *.mincs.net systems and ran squid. This was the system that forwarded ports to lancer. *aches: O/S : AIX 4.3.3ml7 Model : IBM RS/6000 7011-250 CPU : 66mhz PowerPC 601 RAM : 128mb Disk : 9.1gb + NFS Hostname: aches.mincs.net Purpose : AIX build and fiddle system. 32bit. *pains: O/S : AIX 5.0 and 5.1ml2 Model : IBM SP2 slot CPU : 2x 375mhz Power3-II RAM : 512mb Disk : 8x 9.1gb off SSA + NFS Hostname: pains.mincs.net Purpose : AIX build, test, fiddle system. Very fast FPU. 64bit kernel enabled. Was the spare slot in the IBM SP2 system used for trash'n'burn initially. *filthy: O/S : Unixware 8 Model : Yum-cha pentium2 CPU : Pentium 2 400mhz Deschuttes RAM : 512mb Disk : 30gb IDE Hostname: filthy.mincs.net Purpose : Moral cleansing. It rarely was logged into. People would log in.. never return. Donated software and license. *lethargic: O/S : Ultrix 4.5 or NetBSD 1.6 through 3.0 Model : Digital DECStation 5000/20 CPU : MIPS R3000 @20mhz in little endian mode. RAM : 40mb Disk : None. Netboot and root fs off inferno. Hostname: lethargic.mincs.net Purpose : SPIM fandom. Came from jeff0's collection after he passed away. Was also the kerberos server when NetBSD was running. *pizzabox: O/S : MacOS 7.6.1 booting NetBSD 1.6 through 3.0 Model : Apple Quadra 605 with RC040 for FPU. CPU : Motorola 68RC040. (Formerly 68LC040). RAM : 136mb Disk : 2gb SCSI + sloooooow NFS Hostname: pizzabox.mincs.net Purpose : m68k NetBSD dev and m68k assembler joy. *clix01: O/S : CLiX (Clipper UNIX) Model : Intergraph Clipper C2800 CPU : Intergraph Clipper C400 RAM : 128mb Disk : 4gb + 2gb Hostname: clix01 Purpose : interesting systems. They were donated. Took uridium and 0xdeadbeef several weeks to understand how to boot, install and run these systems. *clix02: O/S : CLiX (Clipper UNIX) Model : C6850 CPU : SMP C400 experimental. RAM : 512mb Disk : 6x 1gb Hostname: clix02.mincs.net Purpose : as above with clix01. This was the big box pedestal system. The 2nd cpu board is all wire-wrap and the system had "experimental" on a paper sticker on the rear. *wannabe: O/S : Debian Linux Model : Microsoft Xbox CPU : 733mhz Pentium-III with 128kb L2. (Note! Not a celery) RAM : 64mb Disk : 10gb PATA Hostname: wannabe.mincs.net Purpose : See how linux runs on xbox with the MechWarrior exploit. Note: ethernet is 10/100 but sucks. *pegasus: O/S : Windows Server 2003 (later R2). Model : HP Vectra desktop computer CPU : Pentium-III 650Mhz RAM : 448mb Disk : 60gb PATA Hostname: pegasus.mincs.net (?also there was an external facing IP) Purpose : Various windows crimes. Talk to Omnedon. AKA 'peg'. *lancer: O/S : Windows XP SP2 Model : Yumcha CPU : Pentium4 1.4ghz Willamette RAM : 256mb SDRAM (sloooooooooow) Hostname: lancer.mincs.net (Also had external facing port forwarded) Purpose : This system ran freelancer + mods for MINCS people. Ran an additional firewall package. We were always terrified it'd get owned. Max players was 16. Frequently full of lancer players and required a reboot once (sometimes twice) per day or the universe would crash. *pizza mk.1: O/S : OpenBSD Model : Sun SPARC Station IPC. Lunchbox. (sun4c) CPU : 80Mhz Weitek SPARC powerUP!. RAM : 96mb (64mb onboard 16x4mb 30pin) + 32mb Sbus RAM board. Disk : 2gb SCSI Hostname: pizza.mincs.net Purpose : Portable lunchbox system. It was the dhcpd for the LAN games and ran the httpd with apache and Sclozza's custom pizza ordering software. Fantastic little system till it died. *pizza mk.2: O/S : OpenBSD Model : Sun Ultra-1 Workstation. (sun4u) CPU : 143mhz UltraSPARC-1 RAM : 256mb Disk : 9gb SCSI SA-80. Hostname: pizza.mincs.net Purpose : Same as pizza mk.1 but bigger and bulkier but a truck load quicker. * MINCS Places. -==============- There was a few places one could find MINCS people. - EH1-5. Education and Humanities room 1.5. This was near the oft foul smelling chinese garden pond. Looked great, smelt horrible. Many Lan Social Events were held here and they spilt down the hall in EH on more than a few occassions once the room filled. - Abandoned Ampitheatre. Near EH1.5 in the bush is a path that is fenced off and appears to go nowhere. There is the remains of an old Ampitheatre there. The $Anon SIG held a few gatherings there after darkness. - all rather shady sounding. - IRC. #mincs on the au.undernet.org and later oz.org network was the place to be to trash talk and let your hair down. - EA3. East Academic 3. Omnedon, Delerium and Uridium had a shared office there and a machine room that housed most of the MINCS systems and other random post-grad systems. - EA3 post-grad lounge. The lounge in EA3 was frequently where you slept or jacked into ethernet if you have a portable computer. The unofficial clubroom and home to the LPB's of Ritual Sacrifice MUD. - Mega Lab. Apparently the first gen MINCS and MCC people used to staff and run the megalab support in the early days. We didn't during our time. * The Last Council -=================- El-Prezidente: Slozza - Lee Novakovic (TehPrez) Board Members: Omnedon - Samea Wood (Omne) Uridium - Alastair Boyanich Axia - David Palevliat (TheDave-(tm)) Delerium - Sarah Hatton HappyHippopotamusBSD - M. Wirsky (Hippo) TRS-80 - (?) Treasurer: Axia / Phonix (?) - Dave and Sclozza Sysadmins: Hippoze, Uridium, Omne. Propaganda and intervarcity contact: TRS-80, Uridium * Some notable names to wax nostalgia -====================================- Here is a partial list. Merstly the nicknames are presented to provoke some nostalgia both good, bad and colourful. jeff0 (R.I.P 2005 Jeff Murphy) Harbinger (Mike of the old-guard 'downstairs MIS' fame) Sclozza!!1 (Lee Novakovich) Omnedon (Sam Wood) Milo (Sam's partner?) Uridium (Al Boyanich) Delerium (Sarah Hatton) Froggy Hippo (M. Wirski. Also of SCISSA fame). Ammo Lytha/LythaNova (Marie) Phonix (?) Axia (Teh Dave) Hicks John - Mr m68k Assembly GASBAG! Leman Glen/Glen-Oh!1 Vagues (Mick Downes) Phreaker Achilles Lerman (Also of COMSA fame). Zap! fredderf Hobbs Phaeton Owen Lamott (What was your nick??) Ari (Arie? older Linux guy). MrMathewLangdon (Was this 'actually' your name?) RedRocket Agrippa CaptnNFI! 0xdeadbeef TRS-80 (Also of UCC fame). Knuckles ArseClown (YU no like be called ArseHat?) Striker Rodo (R.I.P 1-NOV-2014 Adrian Cameron Brown) wasd Zathrus (Pronounce correctly if your a B5 fan!) Stalker DarkwingDave DarthBlondie NumNU7Z! ... hundreds more. * MINCS and MITS. A one-sided history. -=====================================- Okay. Earlier I mentioned that there was the "sad" part. At one point a student approached the MINCS board for election. This is a great thing as we always need new blood. He campaigned for election on the basis that he wanted to turn the club into a serious avenue to help people get industry penetration. He proposed the following: "...I propose to turn the club into a more serious and actually useful organisation that will help students take the leap from academia to the workforce. What we want: - Lectures from industry people to prepare us. - Awareness of Murdoch graduants with companies. - More industry exposure. What we don't want: - Games sessions. - Piracy. - SIGs" (excerpt from announcement email) The general concensus at the presentation's conclusion can best be summarised by: "Pass me that crack pipe when your done smoking it?" Being the club we were we allowed him his air-time and access to the announcement email lists and called a vote which went something along the lines of accepting the fellow as the new president or continue with the same crew and activities. Voting was called and there was one vote to 121 against the new direction and president. Motion dismissed. An offer was then suggested to the student that they form a SIG that focused on the industry exposure side of things. None of us had any idea what this could be but in the MINCS spirit, the attitude of "let it fly and see if anyone rocks up and salutes" it was suggested. The student illustrated their prowess with colourful four letter metaphors and further propsed a motion that the board and present members go thee forth and fornicate elsewhere. This person then decided upon another tack. They then went to a member of staff and with the staff member onside, they decided to form a new club which was named MITS. There was a great deal of speculation as to why this happened and none of the MINCS people were made aware of what was said and why the Guild declared MITS the primary club to receive funding and MINCS not to. The funding issue didn't bother MINCS as we were at the stage where we had plenty of money. The Guild was quite happy to have MINCS around still as we were the largest club on campus and we behaved well. Again MINCS was not privy to the conversations by the student that lead to the funding cut, or the issues invented. We didn't actually care that deeply which was perhaps a mistake. The student was renamed "Darth Blondie" by MINCS and was the only member to not be invited to re-join MINCS when membership was to be renewed for the following year due to offensive behaviour and language. MITS self-declared itself as "The Official Murdoch Computer Science Club". A title most people were happy to let them have. MITS had for over two years a membership of three people according to the Guild's statistics. MITS didn't matter to MINCS and we wished them good luck. MINCS did not encourage or discourage MITS cross-membership beyond a single barred member. After 2006 when MINCS was disbanded, we hope that MITS had mellowed and looked after fresher students in a more interesting way than those they initially championed.