A late introduction

[Jon A. Lambert]

With the flurry of introductions to the list, I should probably
provide my own neglected introduction.

I have only been into mudding for about 2 years, and for that
matter the Internet, since it was a primary motivator in getting on
the net.  Before that I ran a C64 then later PC based BBS for about 5 
years where I experimented with other multiplayer games, many of 
which would pass for muds.  I think it was Tradewars that first really 
turned me on to multiplayer gaming.  I should also mention a lengthy
stint on Compuserve where I occasionally played an interesting mud(?) 
which name escapes me. (It was too expensive to dwell there long =))  
I have played many different paper & pencil RPGs since high school and 
thought I'd find something that exactly suited my tastes on the Internet.
So I played on lots of Diku, LPs and Mushes, always seeming to lose 
interest in the various games which were not quite my game.
Originally this was to be a week or so massive assault on Diku code.  
Little did I consider how feebly equipped I was.  This was over nine 
months ago.  Being a masochist, I decided to scrap the crap and use 
it as vehicle for professional education.  Ok, an admittedly feeble excuse
for justifying a massive waste of time. ;-)   I decided to apply all this 
wonderful education in OO that managers have been attempting
to suppress and also get a handle on the real workings of the 
Internet.  So Tychomud was born out of my first baby steps into sockets 
code.  Throughout the months this has evolved from a chat server to a 
place with a few living and non-living things and locations to move 
about in (sometimes this even lasts for a few hours).  Along the way my 
mud has been poisoned with multi-threading, object and relational databases, 
stack-based compilers, graphical interfaces and other such nonsense.
Specifically this mud is designed for fans of Rolemaster/Spacemaster
although it should be easily configurable for many other RPGs.  I surely 
don't wish to get involved with any legal mumbo-jumbo with the company
that develops the game, as I know they have licensed a company to do an 
"official" mud (more along the lines of Sierra on-line).  Because of this, the
database/mudlib will probably never be released, but the server code might.
  
My professional background is 12 years in (gasp) mainframe computing
and a college education in western literature and history and whatever else 
took my fancy at the time.  


P.S.  If you have heard any rumors that I'm related to Bill Gates, well these
are in fact true and I would encourage you to repeat them.  This may in fact
become handy in providing for my later years, provided I can find the right
attorney to advance this claim.  ;-)