It started with a single 3Com switch someone's dad brought home from work. By the time we were done, we'd strung CAT5 across three rooms and someone had mounted a hub to the ceiling with zip ties.
The year was 1997. The game was Quake. The ping was 4ms.
We didn't know it at the time, but those Friday nights would become the benchmark against which every gaming experience since has been measured — and found wanting.
The Setup
Getting eight machines networked was no small feat. We're talking manual IP assignment, NetBEUI still lurking on half the boxes, and at least one machine that could only run in 320x240 because the Trident card wasn't cooperating.
HOST: BEAST-PC (server)
OS: Windows 95 OSR2
RAM: 64MB EDO
GFX: Voodoo 1 (3Dfx)
PING: 0ms (local host)
The Rules
House rules were simple: no rocket jumping in the bathroom level (it crashed Derek's machine), no complaining about the guy on the 486 (he knew what he was getting into), and pizza orders go in before 9pm or you wait until midnight.
Those nights taught us more about networking than any certification ever would.