History

SCCS has been around for decades—and we have the cruft to show for it. Across many years of server migrations, drive recoveries, and more. Learn more about the club's history and about Swarthmore itself here! More to come.

SCCS History

The Swarthmore College Computer Society (SCCS) was founded in Fall 1991 by a group of Swarthmore students, who obtained an official charter from the Student Budget Committee for the Spring 1992 semester. We were founded, in part, to support the activities of students in Dana and Hallowell who had decided to create an AppleTalk network by stringing phone cable between rooms. Approximately 32 Macintoshes on 4 floors (3 in Hallowell, 1 in Dana) were on the network, as was one heavy-duty laser printer—two years before the College network came into being. Gobs of time were spent diagnosing the many network outages that occurred on an almost-daily basis (usually due to cables being clamped by window frames).

In the more than 30 years since, we've swapped buildings, upgraded our hardware, and expanded our Staff. We're no longer stringing phone cable through dorms, but we're still having fun and providing useful facilities and services for our fellow students. Check us out in Clothier basement!

Swarthmore History

SCCS hosts a large collection of historical and archival sites created by former students. A few highlights:

  • swat history This site includes old building info and pictures from an '03 alumnus. Really cool info on here about ML, old gymnasiums, and various other buildings.
  • Free Culture Swarthmore FCS (and the Swarthmore Coalition for the Digital Commons, site no longer available) hosted the Diebold memos in a somewhat famous incident resulting in school-wide uprising to defend against DMCA and cease & desist attacks.
  • Book and Key History Did you know Swarthmore had a secret society? Not so secret anymore, however, and this Class of '98 student expands upon the history of the now-defunct (or are they?) Society of the Book and Key.
  • Swarthmore History Another conglomerate history page from the same author of the Book and Key article, this page includes a pile of articles written mostly for The Phoenix and other publications about miscellaneous Swat traditions etc.
  • The History of the SCCS This 90s-era preserved copy of the SCCS site has a pile of info on both the structure of the club and its various functions, especially in a pre-ITS world. Did you know SCCS used to be on Parrish 5th? Did you even know there was a Parrish 5th?