The Whacked Mac Archives/The Whacked Mac Archives Version 1.0 (L0pht Heavy Industries, Inc.)(1996).iso/How this CD came to be

Text File | 1995-11-27 | 6KB | 111 lines

The Whacked Mac Archives CD-ROM

  It is finally finished. The CD is ready to go. It took one hell of a long
time and allot of work but it is finally done.

   Back in the summer of '94  the L0phT was an exciting place
bubbling with new ideas and scraps of reclaimed technology.  The
internet was exploding and the web was just starting to get big.  We
felt that to further our goals we needed to get some sort of
connection to the net.

   We really didn't have the money necessary to afford a dedicated
link but then we found a company offering relatively cheap access.
All we needed was couple of inexpensive modems.  So we sold off
some of our less used items hoping that someone would be able to
reclaim more of the technology than we were.

   With this cash we set ourselves up with a dedicated 28.8 modem
link to the world.  It was a happy time. Everyone was filled with
excitement of what to do with our new found freedom.  The L0phT
internet presence was created.  A web site went up, archives that
had been tied to the POTS network where suddenly available to the
world,  information was freely exchanged.

  We knew we could not keep this new found freedom to ourselves so
we offered to share our connection with others to expand our reach
into the world.  We allowed others to use our site their own.

   I was drunk with information.  I knew I had to offer something to
world in exchange, but what?  I had no vast archives of hacking
material nor phreaking files.  A web page full of just links to other
sites or useless pictures would be exceedingly LAME. All I ever did
was push my machine to its limits and my machine of choice was
currently a Macintosh.

  Finally, after mailing 'Holy War Dialer' to the umpteenth zillionth
person pleading for it on a lame news group, it occurred to me that
instead of mailing out the odd file or two why not just make them all
available via FTP?  That was it, a Macintosh FTP site. Not the usual
SUMEX, or WUarchives sites but one devoted to those little known
programs and utilities that would help others to utilize their
machines to there fullest potential.

   So I pieced together what parts I had and built a functional Mac SE
with a whopping 4 megs of ram and an insanely huge 80Meg hard
drive.  I assembled the files and organized them and late in
December of '94 The Whacked Mac Archives was born.

   I had no idea how popular it would be. Within a month our once
speedy 28.8 connection had slowed to a crawl. The other board
members of LHI where complaining our entire net was basically
useless. At this point I couldn't take the site down as too many
people where dependent on it, so instead I reluctantly limited it to
two users at a time.

  Things where proceeding along smoothly, there where uploads and
downloads and the FTP site was rocking.  Everyone was happy.  The
only problem was physical space. We liked our old technology to
much. It covered the floor. Not one, but three VAXen cowered in the
corner under their Holy Lady Of the VAX.  CRT's where hung from
ceiling to preserve desk space.  Piles of circuit boards where
everywhere. Live terminals where used on the floor.   We needed
more space.

  So we moved.  Sold two of the VAXen, hollowed out another,
cleaned up the floor, and packed it all up and moved the whole
operation to a larger nicer place.   By this time we new we needed a
faster connection, the 28.8 just wasn't cutting it.  Even with the limits
on the WMA, our net was slow. The Web site was just crippling our
bandwidth.

  A plan for ISDN was initiated. (It is rumored at this point that Mary
Alice Williams rubbed her hands in glee with an evil grin on her
face.)  L0phT the machine was severed from its LAN and placed in a
safe place where it could maintain its connection to the world.  This
meant that the WMA would have to be taken off the net until this
connection could be reestablished.

   It was decided that to preserve hard drive space and connection
speed that the WMA would remain off-line until a High Speed line
could be connected to our new location and L0phT the machine could
be reattached to its network.  This was in June of 1995.   NYNEX has
given us a firm date of "sometime before the beginning of the year"
for the installation of our ISDN line.  Once this occurs the WMA WILL
be placed back on the net and made available free to all.

   When the site went off-line my mailbox overflowed.  The demand
was still there. People still needed the files.  There was nothing I
could do.  I figured it would only be a few weeks until we got the
High Speed line and then the thirst would be quenched. Weeks have
turned into months and I still get tons of mail.

   An idea came, Why not put everything on CD and offer it to the
public?  The idea was deemed good. So we sold some more of our less
used technology, The Amiga Bridge board (we didn't have an Amiga),
the Novell 1.1 (we where already running 2.5.1?) etc...... the cash was
raised and a CDR was actually purchased.  (One of the very few
pieces of equipment here that was actually paid for with cash.  You
don't find CDR's in the trash everyday.)

  I scoured the net, and visited those BBS's that where still tied to the
POTS network, I searched high and low, I got as many files as I could
find that I thought would be good on the CD, organized them, wrote
up the file list, and burned the master.  The master was sent to the
Duplicator and in exchange for large gobs of money sent us back the
Limited Edition Whacked Mac Archives CD-ROM.

   And now you own your very own copy of the Whacked Mac Archives CD.
A piece of the L0phT, a piece of history, a piece of our soul.