[MUD-Dev] (fwd) MU* hiasb at cc.gatech.edstory?

[cg at ami-cg.GraySage.Edmonton.AB.CA]

[J C Lawrence:]

> I'm giving a talk on the history of MU*s at the game developer's
> conference.  Does anyone know:
>
> What year was BSX first created?  The earliest reference I have to
> it is 1992.

I dunno how far back any archives go, but I have an rgm posting that
announces BSX:

>Path: kakwa.ucs.ualberta.ca!unixg.ubc.ca!ubc-cs!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!mcsun!hp4nl!fwi.uva.nl!gene!stolk
>From: stolk at fwi.uva.nl (Bram)
>Newsgroups: rec.games.mud
>Subject: BSX-MUD, a graphical mud, operational NOW!
>Keywords: Graphics MUD Vaporware Virtual-reality
>Message-ID: <1991Oct11.122645.20329 at fwi.uva.nl>
>Date: 11 Oct 91 12:26:45 GMT
>Sender: stolk at fwi.uva.nl
>Organization: FWI, University of Amsterdam
>Lines: 74
>Nntp-Posting-Host: sam.fwi.uva.nl
>
>Hi All,
>
>			this is NOT
>
> #    #    ##    #####    ####   #####   #    #    ##    #####   ######
> #    #   #  #   #    #  #    #  #    #  #    #   #  #   #    #  #
> #    #  #    #  #    #  #    #  #    #  #    #  #    #  #    #  #####
> #    #  ######  #####   #    #  #####   # ## #  ######  #####   #
>  #  #   #    #  #       #    #  #   #   ##  ##  #    #  #   #   #
>   ##    #    #  #        ####   #    #  #    #  #    #  #    #  ######
>
>		But true reality, here and NOW.
>
>A graphical mud, OPERATIONAL, in which pictures are send instead of text.
>You see your surroundings + yourself + present objects/players in full
>color (oh, well, 16 colors). You can walk around the locations using
>the arrow keys. Just consider it to be something like a multi user Sierra
>game.

So, that puts it as least as early as 11 Oct 1991.

> Was BSX the first non-commercial graphical MUD?  Was there anything
> earlier?

There was "Mines of Moria" (I think that's what it was called) on the
CDC Plato educational system. That would have been in the 70's, I think.
It was rather directly based on D&D, I'm told, and used B&W vector-style
graphics (done on bitmapped displays). Unfortunately, I never did see
it myself, but I heard descriptions. It was a combat MUD, but I think it
was only D&D groups against monsters, and not player versus player.

My first announcement of an AmigaMUD release was April 3, 1996, so BSX
was way before me, although quite a lot more primitive. That article
is:  Message-ID: <4jtbqa$g6b at mark.ucdavis.edu>

--
Don't design inefficiency in - it'll happen in the implementation.

Chris Gray     cg at ami-cg.GraySage.Edmonton.AB.CA
               http://www.GraySage.Edmonton.AB.CA/cg/



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