A Brief History of ChaoticMUX
ChaoticMUX has been in existence since approximately October 1, 1996. It was
first founded by Kareila and LITE, running TinyMUX 1.2 on a crufty old Sparc.
We've come a long way since then, through several machine upgrades (currently
a 466 MHz Celeron with 128 megs of RAM, running NetBSD),
through several server upgrades (we run our own modified version of TinyMUX
1.6, and our source code is available),
and into our own domain, chaoticmux.org. Along the way we also picked up
Kareila's husband Alierak to complete our headwizard trinity. Alierak focuses
on maintaining our source code, our machine, and MudNet; LITE oversees
building and player relations; and Kareila does all that plus
everything else because she hasn't learned how to delegate.
As of this last writing (early September 2000), we are preparing to celebrate
our fourth birthday.
We currently host over 250 players, of which a dozen or more are usually
connected to the MUX at any given time.
Our database has more than 10,000 objects, rooms and exits;
since we have no quota restrictions, our players often build large areas.
We are told that we have some of the most friendly staff anywhere on
the Internet, and that's a distinction we work hard to maintain. We have
players from all over the world with all kinds of different interests. We
think we're a pretty darned fun place to spend time, and we hope you will too.
Notable Dates in ChaoticMUX History
- October 1, 1996
- ChaoticMUX first appears on chaotic.mit.edu 4201.
In the first week there are only six players:
Kareila, LITE, Aldar, Randis, Soreth, and scoob.
Over the next several weeks the core MUX area is built up,
globals are coded from scratch, and
new players trickle in as word of mouth spreads.
- April 1, 1997
- The first half-birthday party / April Fools bash is a great success.
From this day forward, the date of a player's first connection is recorded;
everyone else is given the date of midnight, April 1, 1997
(later changed to "A Really Long Time Ago"). The MUX is declared officially
open to the public.
- July 4, 1997
- MudNet makes its debut. The
successor to MushLink, MudNet links together several different games of
different types, allowing players to interact via page, mail, and comsys.
It is a spectacular success.
- July 26, 1997
- After having worked on the ChaoticMUX source code for over a year, Alierak
finally succumbs to the lure of the MUX and requests a character. He is
immediately promoted to wizard.
- August 16, 1997
- A former player named helios breaks into LITE's account on the server and
attempts to gain access to LITE's character. When he is discovered, he
initiates a denial of service attack. ChaoticMUX is down for several days
while Alierak cleans up the mess on the server and prepares to move across
campus. Finally, the MUX returns with a new IP address.
- October 1, 1997
- Chaotic's first birthday celebration. The highlight of the festivities is
LITE's first annual scavenger hunt. There are 275 players.
- December 20, 1997
- An obscure MUX bug manifests, and little green monsters eat half the
attributes in the database. The most recent unaffected backup turns out to
be two weeks old. Luckily, the players have been too busy with finals and
holiday preparations to do much in those two weeks, and the MUX picks up
where it left off with relative ease after a few days of downtime.
- October 1, 1998
- Chaotic's second birthday celebration. The highlight of the festivities
is the storytelling session
where players reminisce about days gone by. There are 336 players.
- February 3, 1999
- After years of making our various hardcode modifications available as
(sometimes incompatible) feature patches, we decide to go back to the original
MUX source and start over, using CVS to track our revisions and bugfixes. The
first snapshot of the resulting ChaoticMUX source is released on this day.
- August 14, 1999
- ChaoticMUX is taken down as Kareila and Alierak prepare to move off the
MIT campus. A refugee MUX is set up on hellspawn's machine, churchill.mux.cx
4201.
- October 1, 1999
- ChaoticMUX returns, just in time for the celebration of its third birthday.
The staff reveals a reorganized central MUX area and a revamped website, and
promises new policies to better explain their standards of behavior and social
ideals. There are 351 players.
To be continued as we remember more things...
If you remember a date for something that should be here,
send email!
