Thread: Old muds
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Old 06-07-2012, 10:18 AM   #7
DirkVoid
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Join Date: May 2012
Location: England
Home MUD: The Void
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Re: Old muds

I did smile at the classifications, less than 20 as dead. Back in the late 80s if you were truly independent and didn't have one of the early networks to rely on, the hardware capacity to support 20 users was well beyond mere mortals.

I created The Void in the very late 80s, finally went live at AdventureCon '89, still ticking along happily with classification dead (although technically a Lua re-write is). I believe Shades is still running (in it's original format) with the same classification.

At the time phone bills were up to £3+ an hour to connect, and you needed some hardware knowledge, so not a huge playerbase even inside of London.

I recall busting a gut to buy 2 286s, had to beg and borrow 4 Dowty Quattros, and relied on someone else to run and pay for the 4 lines. The frontend had a hugely expensive 8 way serial card (a moment of blind optimism), so if I could have afforded the lines I would have been limited to 9 players (with the console).

I seem to recall even semi-commercial games at the time, like the Lap of the Gods frontend the Butler only had 12 lines (although I could well be wrong). Not sure how many lines Pippin's network had.

Anyway enough of my reminiscing, to answer your question I doubt any game truly exists in anything like its pre-90 format that can support the numbers you are looking at. It was a very different time, the tools we had to play with a tad primitive.
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