People have been playing chess by mail for as long as there has been mail.
Before that chess moves were sent by horseback, good help was easier to find back then :)
Most of the CPM and early DOS BBS's had a range of games that were based on one game
step per day
so everyone could log in sometime during the day and make their move..
At one point back in the early 90's we had 1500+ BBS's networked by modem
exchangeing e-mail and
games packets two dialups a night or more if you were a star and not a point.
It was something to look forward to each day ..... In a stepped time game, everyone moves
at once, the
attacker has no clue what the defender has done untill both moves are recorded. Both sides
get the same
information new every morning and have all day to respond with their move. A supprise
defense can be
very humbeling to an agressor. The best part was they were people on the other end and not
bots so you
could curse them out and chat as the game progressed over the weeks and months.
It was what we had to work with 25+ years ago, which is the only thing keeping it any
where close to being
on topic. Here in columbus 15+ years ago we had 12 386x16's running netware over thin
net with a
mixture of modems tossing mail and games packets every night from midnight to dawn some
nights.
There was computer night life before the internet.
Bob
On Thu, 5 Jul 2007 12:46:18 -0700 (PDT), Chris M wrote:
> Interesting details on an obscure use of rented
> computer time! :^)
I'll say. I still can't fathom though how
engrossing
a game can be when decisions are spread out over so
long a period of time...
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