History

[Scissors on University Road, 1991, courtesy of the Alcuin Separatist Movement]

Jorvick II

In late 1990, Sis rewrote Jorvick in C. Comments in the sourcecode seem to indicate that this started on 6th October - very early in the autumn term. The code was tidied up by Magic and ERiK, and various bugs were identified and fixed over the next few years by Sis, Magic, ERiK, and later by me (Nick).

Somewhere along the line, Jorvick was accorded a tacit but guarded approval by the Computing Service, who granted it a special account of its own (SOCS118) from which to run - certainly this was the case when I started at York (in October 1991). It was Computing Service policy at the time that such accounts (which were generally reserved for student societies or other organisations) be registered in the name of a specific user. ERiK was about to graduate, Magic had graduated in summer 1991, and Sis was ineligible as he was at this time a Computer Science undergraduate (which students at that time were restricted to their own departmental systems).

And so I was invited onto the team. The rationale behind this move still escapes me, although I believe the successful renewal of the SOCS118 vax account may have had something to do with it. Or possibly I was being used as a good-natured and oblivious pawn in some unseen power-struggle. There does seem to have been a long history of shadiness regarding the appointment of DPs and editors. ERiK, for example, was invited to be a DP after successfully hacking the board's security to give himself extra privileges. One can only assume that Sis and Magic decided they'd rather have him on their side. ERiK says that he thinks that during this hack he may have inadvertently locked some file and henceforth prevented Bilbo (one of the earlier DPs) from logging onto the board.

Jorvick

Date: 2003/03/21 11:05:33