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The Marlowe Online Server was set up in mid 2004 as an experimental
tool to develop web applications. At this time the owner Andrew
Roberts was on a gap year before his university course. The
existence of the server gave me an incredible insight into both
Local Area Networks, and Wide Area Network as well as HTTP and FTP
servers. This was long before I started my university course, but it
was a valuable experience as this was one of the many foundations I
pulled upon during my degree.
The Marlowe Online Server has changed significantly since it started
over four years ago. It was far more simplistic when it started,
with just simple HTML produced with the aid of Microsoft Frontpage.
The server then went through a phase during 2006 with several new
servers (services) written in code. All of these servers were
written in BBC BASIC For Windows, using the Windows API to open
sockets and listen for ports.
In 2007 all of the small servers (services) were condensed into one
server, requiring major rewrites and alterations. This resulted in a
far improved system which is still running today.
In late 2007, the most largest addition to the Server was made, with
the addition of MeWAP! This new application was designed to allow
users to create their own WAP pages, in a similar style to the
various spaces and personal pages on the web. The system is fully
functional, but due to the lack of advertising, it never caught on.
During the summer
of 2008 we spent much time improving the front end, and content of
the server. These changes included . . .
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The Star Trek page was
moved from the Marlowe Software section to the main server page,
the Star Trek page was completely redesigned.
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A new Doctor Who page
has been added.
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The Thinking Behind a
Thought has been completely revised, it now reads a lot easier and
has many mistakes corrected.
We are in the process
of moving our server to a linux system. This has several key
advantages, firstly it will allow me to learn hands on how to use
the linux operating system, secondly it will teach me a lot more
about maintaining a server, and thirdly it is generally regarded
to be a better choice of operating system.
If you have any useful advise for us during this move to linux,
please email us. |
