Quipu Database

An Inca Quipu

In 1994 a small group of Internet enthusiasts founded an Internet provider as a local non-profit organization in Karlsruhe, Germany. The INKA, as it was called, grew to more then 1700 users on its peak in the summer of 1999.

I was one of the founding members and since then I have been doing things off and on for the INKA. One of the things I have been responsible for is the database "Quipu", so called after the knotted strings used by the old Incas for accounting and as a mnemonic aid. (The picture on the right depicts an Inca with such a quipu.)

The database keeps track of all users, host names, IP numbers, passwords, accounting data and much more. It has evolved over time from a small home-brew system written by Frederik Ramm to a complex PostgreSQL database with dozens of tables and thousands of entries. In the winter of 1998/1999 I setup the whole database again from scratch and designed and wrote a new web interface. Actually there are two interfaces, one for the secretary and admins which is very powerful and one for the user, where he can change a few settings himself. You can look at some example web pages of the admin interface. The database setup and the web interface is custom made for the INKA, so it's probably not very useful for anybody else. If you are interested in it anyway, mail me and I'll see what I can do to help you.