Computer Club

From Staples High Wiki

The Inklings article about The Staples High Wiki

The Computer Club is a club for nerds who want to learn more about computers than they can learn from Staples's computer program. Currently the Computer Club operates on Junker, the club's server which runs on Linux. The Computer Club is behind such projects as the Homework System (predecessor to the WLN) and this wiki. Computer Club currently operates under the supervision of Mr. Rogers and meets every Monday from 2:30 to 3:45 in the Mac lab.

The WLN and original Y-drive access sites were created by Nathan Faber and Shant Vosgueritchian, prominent former members of the Computer Club, based on the original Homework System which is no longer in use.

The Computer Club also created Staples Online, which has been decreasing in use with the creation of the school's official webpage.

History

The Staples Computer Club evolved from a group of students who loved computers and had no real place to apply their computer interests in or around the school. In the late 1980's, students began to meet after school in the one Apple computer lab with Mr. Jim Honeycutt, one of the computer teachers at the time.

Several students, Emily Reich and Kenn Messman, suggested that an electronic bulletin board be installed to permit the posting of messages, the downloading of shareware or freeware software, and the exchange of email messages. Using a donated, monstrous, ten megabyte hard drive, an old Apple IIe computer, a software program entitled Magic City Micro, and a newly installed telephone line, Staples On-Line was born. The Staples Computer Club had a raison d'etre! The "club" as it became known among its members met each week to maintain the BBS and perform routine diagnostic operations. The club received help from its first patron satin, Joan Hoffman, a Westport resident who was the sysop for the local AppleShare user group's BBS.

After serveral years, the Club switched from the Apple II computer to a Macintosh se30. The software naturally changed from Magic City Micro to TeleFinder, an excellent Mac BBS program.

In the fall of 1995, several students, Jon Von Kohorn and Randy Skattum, suggested that the Computer Club install a World Wide Web server. This would require more than a telephone line. This would require a substantial connection to the Internet.

Help came to Computer Club in two forms: people and grants. Bob Bernard and Nick Pizarro, two town residents and computer experts, offered to help the students set up a web server and update the BBS. The club was still running TeleFinder on the Macintosh SE30 computer over one phone line. Then Emily Reich, away at Amherst now, donated her old Macintosh II computer; this enabled the club to expand to a second phone line.

An ISDN line was brought into Staples High School in the spring of 1996. Within 24 hours, Randy Skattum and Jon Von Kohorn had set up a web server on the Macintosh II computer. For a while, the Staples On-Line BBS ran on the same server as the web server. Eventually, additional equipment would arrive.

By the spring of 1996, the Staples Computer Club was running a First Class (tm) BBS and World Wide Web server. The server was a Macintosh 7200 computer and was obtained through a grant with the Westport Education Foundation. This server was fast enough to allow multiple remote users to access the web server.

Much has happened since then. The FirstClass BBS still exists, but is now run by the school district, providing all teachers and staff with e-mail. Around 1999, the computer club moved to Linux and redesigned the website to its current look and feel. The Computer Club originally ran Junker on an old 386 Computer donated by Nathan Faber, hence its name. The machine became very popular among the computer club members, and with the growing number of projects and ideas they needed a new machine. Eric Schoeller wrote a grant proposal to the Staples High School PTA to obtain funding for a new machine. Provided with more horsepower from a Pentium 3 PC, Nathan Faber, Michael Mulligan, Eric Schoeller and other members of C^2 (as we used to call it!) rebuilt the website using PHP and MySQL. Quickly thereafter they also designed Inklings Online, the TV System, and the Homework System, which has since evolved into the WLN.

The domain name stapleshigh.net was originally purchased by Eric Schoeller and other members of C^2 in or around 1999. Eric Schoeller continued to fund the domain name until 2004 when it was transferred to Bob Bernard.

Based on a rescued page from the original Staples High School website