Chris McNeil (network engineer)
Chris McNeil (born March 13, 1962) is a Canadian network engineer and software developer. In the early 1990s he developed numerous TCP/IP utilities for the Macintosh, including a graphical Archie client for the Macintosh and a nslookup type client. These programs were both described in the Internet Starter Kit for Macintosh [1]. He also developed a PC-DOS Gopher server documented in Request for Comments RFC 1689, and a Windows Internet package distributed by the Canadian telecommunications provider NBTel as part of their internet package.
Education
McNeil received an Electrical Engineering degree (BSEE) from the University of New Brunswick (UNB) in 1989. He later completed a Master of Technology Management degree at Memorial University of Newfoundland and is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP).
Early Internet infrastructure
After graduating from UNB McNeil was employed by UNB working for the Computer Services Department. While working their he was part of the technical team involved in developing NBnet, a provincial academic network connecting universities and research institutions across New Brunswick.
In 1992 McNeil left UNB to become Network Manager at Mount Allison University (MTA) in Sackville, New Brunswick. While at MTA he designed the campus network using a collapsed backbone architecture, with a Wellfleet BN router at the centre. By the spring of 1993 the network provided Internet connectivity to all student residence rooms.[2].
Software development
Beginning in the early 1990s, McNeil developed several Macintosh networking utilities distributed through the Info-Mac archives, a major distribution channel for Macintosh Internet software at the time.
McNeil's first publicly distributed program, NetCookie, appeared in the Info-Mac Digest in 1991.[3]
McNeil later developed one of the earliest graphical Archie clients for the Macintosh. The program was reviewed in The Mac Shareware 500 (1994), which described the software as “peerless” among Macintosh Archie tools and awarded it four out of five stars.[4]
The Archie client and McNeil’s DNS utility Query It! were described in Internet Starter Kit for Macintosh (1993) by Adam C. Engst, which described McNeil’s program as the only Archie client then available for the Macintosh platform.[1]
The book included screenshots and a technical description of the software.[1]
Discussion of Query It! also appeared in technical Usenet forums in the mid-1990s, being described it as a Macintosh utility similar to the Unix nslookup tool.[5]
McNeil’s Archie client was later included in the Japanese publication Shusaku Free Software 100-sen: Internet Marugoto Pack for Macintosh, which documented its use with academic Archie servers including those at Kyoto University.[6]
These utilities were developed during the early days of the Internet, before the Web became the dominate Internet technology.
Gopher server development
McNeil developed a PC-DOS implementation of a Gopher server during the early period of Internet information retrieval systems.
The implementation is documented in RFC 1689, which identifies McNeil as the author of the DOS Gopher server and notes that members of the University of Minnesota Gopher development team referred technical issues related to the DOS implementation to him.[7]
The software was later described in Richard Wiggins’s book The Internet for Everyone, which includes detailed discussion of installation and operation of the server.[8]
== Internet Software Technologies In the mid-1990s McNeil co-founded Internet Software Technologies in Sackville, New Brunswick. The company developed Internet Express, a Windows-based suite of Internet client software that was distributed by NBTel to its Internet subscribers.[9]
Internet Software Technologies also produced HTMLed Pro, an HTML editor originally developed by Peter Crawshaw. McNeil later added features including a visual table designer, image-map editor, FTP publishing capability and Rich Text Format (RTF) import functionality.[10] HTMLed Pro was editor's choice for HTML editing tools in Australian PC Magazine April, 1996.
The company was later mentioned in a report of the Canadian National Advisory Board on Science and Technology as a New Brunswick technology firm specializing in Internet client/server applications.[11]
Internet Software Technologies was also profiled in Financial Post Magazine in 1995 as a New Brunswick software firm developing Internet connectivity software and HTML authoring tools including HTMLed Pro.[12]
In 1999 McNeil represented Internet Software Technologies during a Team Canada trade mission to Japan led by Prime Minister Jean Chrétien.[13]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Engst, Adam C. (1993). Internet Starter Kit for Macintosh. Hayden Books. pp. 320–322. ISBN 1568300646. Search this book on
- ↑ "Mount Allison residence network connects students to Internet". Mount Allison University Archives. 1993.
- ↑ Chris McNeil (11 August 1991). "[*] NetCookie". Info-Mac Digest. Stanford University. Retrieved 10 March 2026.
- ↑ The Mac Shareware 500. Hayden Books. 1994. p. 196. ISBN 1566040760. Search this book on
- ↑ "NSLOOKUP for the Mac?". Usenet comp.sys.mac.comm. 1994.
- ↑ 秀作フリーソフトウェア100選 インターネットまるごとパック for Macintosh. ASCII Corporation. 1996. ISBN 4756105971. Search this book on
- ↑ Template:Cite rfc
- ↑ Wiggins, Richard W. (1994). The Internet for Everyone. McGraw-Hill. pp. 499–507. ISBN 0070670188. Search this book on
- ↑ "Internet history in New Brunswick". InternetNB. 1995.
- ↑ "HTMLed Pro". W3C Tools Archive.
- ↑ Healthy, Wealthy and Wise: A Framework for an Integrated Federal Science and Technology Strategy (PDF) (Report). Government of Canada. 1995. p. 77.
- ↑ "Branham: Canadian software companies". Financial Post Magazine. March 1995. p. B18.
- ↑ "Trade mission good for N.B.". Telegraph-Journal. 1999-09-16.
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