Shadow
From Slacked
History
Shadow "im bored >:o" Griffins was born in Brussels in 1924 to a French mother (Jacqueline Dubelle), and an Indian father (Ramjab Jambella). He was forcibly drafted into the Japanese Army at the age of fifteen where he was moved into the naval division. Only a few short years, and several medals later shadow was chosen to board a voyage with the naval division of the Japanese army on a mission to attack the United States Navy docked at Pearl Harbour. Upon hearing the news, Shadow's expression changed to one we commonly see in his behaviour today, the famed "d:o". [Note: This was the first reported sighting of the expression.] Although the mission was successful Shadow did not escape unharmed, he was hit by a stray bullet from the anti-aircraft emplacements on the deck of one of the U.S. Naval battleships docked at pearl harbour and had to have his big toe removed on his left foot.
Due to his injury he was moved to doing paperwork in the Japanese Code Division, more commonly referred to as the JCD. During his time there he learned complex programming techniques that were far ahead of their time, and this was his first entrance into the world of IRC. Although his methods were crude, Shadow created his first IRC network in 1944. Using a simple punch card system transported by carrier pigeon shadow was able to create a somewhat primitive version of the IRC networks many believed to have been first pioneered in the late 80's. Although the kicking relied on a simple boot attached to a lever and the pigeons would not always be successful at relaying their messages on time, the chatting for the most part worked solidly. It is said (although unconfirmed) that the first message shadow relayed to another user on his network was "NO FLOODINS". Although, he had yet to develop the concept of an "IRC channel." Unfortunately his labours were closed down by a superior officer when it was discovered, due to shadow's paper shortage at the time, he had been using top secret documents for punch cards.
Shortly after the war, shadow moved to America and obtained a P.H.D. in computer science, the first computing degree in the world. At this point his mind was always turning back to his earlier designs for IRC networks and how he could improve them. Although, unlike earlier in his career, he didn't have the resources to successfully complete something on the scale of his old one. He started out on his second model with the same basic concept, punch cards and kicking with a simple lever mechanism. The plans differed on one point though: the method of transportation. Since the use of carrier pigeons to relay mail did not work as smoothly or as quickly as would be benificial in a realtime interface, shadow decided to change things around. He built a primitive keyboard which would convert the message onto a punchcard and the binary would be sent to other users via morse code. This method worked much more quickly than his previous model, where it could sometimes take days to do a simple thing like changing the topic, but still wasted excessive amounts of paper, not only the punchcards but also the typewriter like machine that was printing messages sent by users.
For many years shadow worked on different methods of creating IRC networks, and although he filed many patents during his life, none of them were ever picked up by companies showing interest in his ventures. That is, not until the Vietnam War. In the war the US government decided to use Shadow's simple method of communication for their troops on the front lines. The next challenge for shadow, of course, was converting his system to work wirelessly along great distances with the possibility of enemy gunfire and explosions at any second. [SECTION NEEDS MORE DETAILED INFORMATION] After shadow had developed these techniques he gave them to the U.S. army and they were used extensively throughout the war. But shortly before it ended, Shadow was contacted by the other side. They too, wanted this unique method of communication. This was the first time shadow decided upon developing the concept of an IRC "channel". Without these channels, the two enemy sides would've seen each others communications. [Note: This was also when the AKICK was developed, although due to its wartime setting the cruder method of using an airstrike on the enemy attempting to enter a restricted channel was used.
Shortly after this, with the advent of networked computers and CRT monitors, shadow decided that computers would be the best platform to suit his needs. He ported over IRC and from that point onwards, it gained huge popularity with the online community. After he had perfected the system, shadow went into a semi-retirement from his projects and let things run their course on their own. [Note: Many people believe shadow's early retirement is merely a retirement from the development of IRC related projects, and shadow has worked on, and is working on, many other secret projects, many of which are still unknown.]
