August 1996
The network started as an experimental peer-to-peer hookup of two machines located at 1831 Esic Drive in Edwardsville. One PC was a Windows 95 thing, the other - OS/2 Warp. This early setup had no server and no shared devices, such as printers.
June 1997
Network moves to 1607 Prairieview, gets an NT4 server called Marx, and the domain is called Prairiedale. In July Dave Seybert and Andrzej Heyduk, in a fit of unprecedented madness, fueled by excessive beer consumption, dig a ditch cutting across their respective yards to allow for the Seybert machines to be a part of the Prairiedale network. The operation is successful, and the patient lives.
October 1997
The network was modified, so that Marx became a fully dedicated server, and was not used for anything else. Also, the Seyberts acquired two seperate workstations (Kelly and David) connected to a new hub, which in turn was connected via an uplink to the hub at the Heyduk house. Prairiedale at that point had machines which ran the following operating systems: Windows NT Server, Windows NT, Windows 95, Windows 98, OS/2 Warp, and Unix (RedHat Linux).
March 1998
A Backup Domain Controller called Engels was added to the network. This enhanced network stability. Engels was running Windows NT 4.0 Server.
October 1998
The Seyberts, otherwise known as traitors, moved to Texas 10/17/98. The network went on, but without two workstations. Gophers had a feast on 225 feet of underground network cable.
November 1999     
BIG changes. Four new machines were added. These were: Beria (Windows NT4), Lenin (Dell laptop), Stalin (Windows 98), and Jezow (Corel Linux). Also Andrzej was renamed to Trotsky and was now running Windows 2000 Server. The entire network gained direct access to the Internet via a Proxy Server running on Trotsky using a cable modem.
April 2000     
A Dell WebPC was added to the network. It replaced Engels (taking its name) and was running Windows 98 SE.
September 2000     
Jake took Lenin to Poland, which is historically justified. Stalin was ditched, i.e. disconnected, which he richly deserved. Karolina gained a new machine called Karolcia, running Windows Me.
February 2001     
The network was given a much more streamlined configuration. Marx remains to be a PDC, responsible for user authentication, Trotsky is primarily an Internet server, Jezow handles music and hosts a re-designed internal Intranet. The remaining machines (Engels, Beria, Karolina, and Karolcia) are strictly clients.
May 2001     
Windows XP Professional (Beta 2) was installed on three clients (Engels, Karolcia, and Beria)
June 2001      
Major change. A Linksys Cable/DSL 4-port router was added and Trotsky was equipped with a 60Gb HD and a 100 Mbps Linksys network card. All machines are now on a 100 Mbps network. Both hubs are now Linksys FastEthernet 100 Mbps boxes. Additionally, an Internet phone with Net2Phone service has been installed for long distance and international calling. The router can work as a DHCP server, but is not configured that way to allow for the operation of one FTP port behind the firewall. All clients except for Jezow are now running Windows XP Professional.
October 2001      
Karolina and Beria were replaced by Dell Dimension PIV/1.7 GHz machines. Trotsky server was retired, and Karolina was renamed to Trotsky. The FTP server function was transferred to Jezow. The Linux machine is using ProFTPD to handle FTP traffic. A Hawking 3-port print server was added to the network as a separate IP device. Both printers are now connected to the print server, and are therefore no longer dependent on any particular computer running.
May 2004      
Moving time! The family is being transplanted to Fort Wayne, Indiana. The network disassembled and waiting for a better future...
January 2005      
Network fully reconstituted in the new location. Marx running Windows Server 2003 on a Dell Dimension 2.7 GHz machine.
June 2007     
The new addition is a brand new iMac which is now the main family computer. Not joined to the domain but working fine with the network "from the outside".
February 2009     
Dell Mini 9 netbook joins the domain as "Mini".
January 2015
Server totally ditched in favor of self-built NAS storage/sharing unit. New 5K iMac as the main machine. Old iMac in the "office" upstairs.