History of SOI

Hi.. *smile*.. new people constantly arrive at the threshold to SOI.. and many of them wonder.. just how the state was created!...

Well.. here is a breif overview of important events in the history of SOI.. for those who are interested.. *smile*...

  1. 3/95 - Cyber Help, Inc. is formed in March 1995. Cyber Help's stated business will be web pages creation, hosting, e-mail, and internet connectivity.

  2. 5/95 - Cyber Help installs its first internet connection. A 256KB link from Sprint.

  3. 7/95 - Internet Chatter "Jodi" contacts Cyber Help and requests help in building an internet chat site. This chat site is called.. "The Virtual University".. and operates as a completely free site. No private rooms, no private msging.

  4. 8/95 - The chat site is enhanced to include 1 public room, and 1 private room per account. The mailroom is added, and the site is renamed to "State of Insanity". Jodi gives accounts to several of her online friends.

  5. 9/95 - Work continues on adding features to the chat site. Seph signs up to be the System Admin for SOI.

  6. 10/95 - The chat site changes from a free site.. to a member site. The first memberships are sold on 10/31/95. The chat site operates on a single 100Mhz pentium provided by Cyber Help, Inc. This 100mhz pentium, with 2 ultra-SCSI drives, 32 Mbytes memory costs, tape drive, ethernet controller, floppy, 4xCDROM and 1Mbyte Graphics card costs $4,500!

    At this point, SOI becomes the first completely citizen supported site on the net. The site operates solely on taxes collected from citizens. The site adopts its strict "no advertising" policy.

  7. 11/95 - A second server is purchased for the chat site. This server is named "The State of Emergency". This server operates independently of SOI, and is made available for people to use when SOI is unavailable. At this point in time, SOI runs using a freeware web server, and the freeware webserver has a memory leak. The server must be rebooted every day. Each time the system is rebooted, seph announces:
    "A Quick Boot is needed... The site will be down for 5 minutes... Please stand by.. naked!"
    When SOI reboots.. everyone moves to the state of emergency.

  8. 12/95 - A third server is added. This server, called "State of Affairs" is a third 100mhz pentium. While an entrance is created for SOA, this entrance is really just another entrance to SOI. For the first time, SOI is truly running across two servers. Citizenship at this point crosses 100 citizens.

  9. 1/96 - A copy of the SOI chat software is sold and becomes HyperChat Uk.

  10. 1/96 - SOI reaches 200 Citizens.

  11. 2/96-4/96 - SOI adds 100 citizens per month, and 1 server per month. Servers added during this time are 166Mhz pentiums costing about $1400 each. The old 100mhz servers are pulled as chat servers and reused as data distribution hubs.

  12. 4/96 - Cyber Help trades in the 256Kb/s sprint link for a 1.54Mb/s T1 link from USA.NET. The site migrates from 205 IP addresses to 165.212.218.X.

  13. 4/96 - 7/96 - SOI adds 100 citizens per month, and 1 server per month. Servers added during this time are 200Mhz pentiums costing about $1400 each. On 7/24/96, Cyber Help publishes the physical architecture of SOI, found here, and a logical architecture, found here.

  14. 9/5/96 - SOI reaches 1000 citizens.

  15. 10/96 - Jodi, one of the founders of SOI passes away from cancer.

  16. 11/96 - Cyber Help buys a second T1, this one from Colorado Supernet. The second T1 is not purchased for capacity reasons, but is purchased for redundancy purposes as the performance of the USA.NET T1 is not as good as desired. The site now consists of over 25 servers and connects to the net by 2 T1's. The IP address picked up with the second T1 includes 204.133.196.X. The Mirror SOI site is opened.

  17. 12/96 - Chat site "State of Emergency" is turned off.

  18. 1/97 - A third T1 is purchased. This T1 is used internally to connect the 165 and 204 sites. (See the physical diagram below).

  19. 9/97 - SOI publishes another physical architecture, and that can be seen here.

  20. 3/98 - SOI continues to grow and reaches about 1800 citizens on 30 servers.

  21. 2/98 - After going for almost 2 years with the USA.NET link.. and almost 1 year with the Colorado Supernet link, Cyber Help decides to upgrade from Tier 2 internet providers to Tier 1. The hope, is that the single T1 from a Tier 1 provider will work better than the Tier 2 provider T1's.

  22. 3/98 - A Tier 1 T1 is purchased from MCI, and connects directly to the MCI backbone. Performance of this T1 is wonderful. Low/no Packet loss. No Downtime. The site begins to migrate to the 204.188.133.X IP Adress range.

  23. 4/98 - The USA.NET T1 is released. The 165.212.218.X IP address range is lost.

  24. 5/98 - Rather than increasing the number of servers, SOI begins upgrading 166Mhz servers to 300Mhz servers.

  25. 5/98 - The Colorado Supernet T1 is released. The 204.133.196.X IP address range is lost.

  26. 6/98 - SOI Begins upgrading 200Mhz servers to 400Mhz servers. SOI begins giving away spare equipment, which results from the upgrades, to SOI citizens.

  27. 10/98 - The MCI T1 turns into a Cable/Wireless T1 when MCI sells their Internet business to Cable and Wireless. MCI does this, so they can merge with Worldcom.

  28. 11/98 - SOI hits 2000 Citizens, and continues to grow at about 30 citizens/month.

  29. 12/98 - Cyber Help begins planning for the next big step in SOI growth. That is, acquiring a 2nd T1 from a Tier 1 provider for capacity reasons. SOI runs at 1.3 Mbits/sec during the day, and hits 1.5Mbits/sec at night on the 1.54Mbit/second Cable and Wireless T1.

  30. 12/98 - 1/99 - A bandwidth drive is launched to help obtain the T1 sooner than would otherwise be possible.

  31. 1/99 - The bandwidth drive ends after collecting almost $6,000. toward a new T1. Negotiations with National Providers begin, and Sprint is selected as the provider for the second T1.

  32. 3/99 - The second T1 is installed, SOI reaches 2,100 citizens, and after many system upgrades the site looks like this (129K).

  33. 4/99 - HyperChat UK returns as a Cyber Help operated site.
  34. 7/99 - SOI Reaches 2200 Citizens!
  35. 1/00 - SOI survices Y2K with no problems.
  36. 2/00 - SOI buys its first 550Mhz Pentium III, and upgrades SOMD with it.
  37. 2/00 - SOI hits 2300 Citizens!
  38. 2/00 - SOI buys two 600 Mhz Pentium IIIs to replace aging 200 Mhz Pentiums.
  39. 3/02 - SOI upgraded SOM15, eliminating the last 200Mhz Pentium in use as a chat server. SOM15 was placed onto our first 1.6Ghz system. Also, the power went off on the 100Mhz pentium that was used as our first original chat server. We had been using it for other purposes, but the system finally out lived its usefulness. It still worked when we turned it off, it was just a little too slow for the cost of the electricity it took to run it!
  40. Future.. *smile*.. Stay tuned!