A Brief History: Difference between revisions

"In October 1995 a group of friends got the ball rolling on the idea of a computer network in DCU, run by students for the students". These immortal words have been on every society website since 1998, and still capture what redbrick essentially is (friends, vision, education, cooperation, proactivity). The first redbrick machine was a personal computer of drjolt, dubbed 'Nurse', named after a Therapy? Album. It was originally put on the network in the School of Computer Applications, hidden under a desk at the back of the LG01 computer lab, but first went online from under a desk in QG07 in the Business School (Computer Apps unwilling to extend the temporary arrangements up to this point). This was early 1996 when Redbrick was switched on for the first time. Soon after, Redbrick was granted a 'subnet' (136.206.15.X) from the wider college organisation, DCU Computer Services (CSD), giving the society more official status within the university.  

The first event took place in Fibbers (now Bacchus) of Parnell Street on October 17th, organised by some users in the chat room. The first event organised by the committee however, dubbed "The First Fiddle", took place in The Mean Fiddler, and also was the first Intersocs event. A more renown event was held at Christmas, the month after, in the Jolly Beggarman pub (now Kitty Kiernans) on Collins Ave, just down the road from DCU. This event has become legendary for stories of thayl@rb climbing & falling off a nearby phonebox, and further trouble at a house party later on where uninvited local ruffians ("scumbags") were dealt with by some of the society's more intimidating early members.  

Redbrick as a system for users consisted of a Bulletin Board System (BBS), which were popular at that early time of the Irish internet. These were systems that people could dial into from home, post messages to, chat, all in a purposely-designed program on a text based terminal. Redbrick's BBS had a popular chat room area and a strong newsgroup culture. Many famous discussions and posts took place, and the BBS system is remembered fondly as an easy to use central hub for society members to communicate.