BACK TO THE FUTURE, BACK TO THE BASEMENT

THEN AND NOW, UNPAID STUDENTS DRIVE MUCH OF THE TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION IN DARTMOUTH COMPUTING

The students that former math professor Thomas Kurtz recalls swarming over the new hardware in the basement of College Hall in 1964 are long gone from campus. Still known as "Kemeny's Kids" (see www.kemenyskids.com ), their spirit lives on. But now, like much of the modern computer world, even the location has gone virtual. Today it's a Web site http://basement.dartmouth.edu. Here's how the latest crop of "Kids" describe themselves on the site:

"The Basement Team, founded in the fall of 1998, came together when the makers of the Dartmouth Interactive Directory, Stevie Clifton '10 and Jason Hsiao '9B, joined forces with Dave Latham '01 and Dan Scholnick '00, the creators of WebBlitz. The name of the group refers to various basement- like environments that have inspired (or sometimes detracted from) our work."

That's right: Two of the College's major Internet features—the Dartmouth Interactive Directory, which allows students and staff to search for each other based on criteria such as dorm or major rather than name, and WebBlitz, which allows off-campus BlitzMail access through a standard Web browser- were neither written by nor supported by the College. Like the original Dartmouth Time Sharing System, they were created by students. The Basement is nonprofit, staffed by volunteers. And like the creators of that seminal system ("They were so smart," says Kurtz. "Much smarter than I was."), the new kids didn't need much help from the grownups. They didn't even need a climbing structure. All they needed was a playground and the freedom to build one for themselves. Who expected them to erect one strong enough to carry the adult users, too?