Jun 13 2008
Out of the MUD
As personal computers started to appear on more desks around the world the need to be hooked up to a mainframe to be able to process data went away. But something was missing in those early days of PC use. There was no well developed internet [Gasp!].
The internet did exists but it was far from what we experience today. Emails were mostly still just for professional use and ’surfing the web’ was simply not done. Why not? Well, the main reason was connectivity - or rather the lack of it.
The common Personal Computer user used his or hers computer as a word processor with some additional benefits like spreadsheets and databases. Data was predominantly shared through diskettes (remember the big 5.25″ floppy discs?).
There were no (or very few and very cost prohibitive) ways to gain access to the Internet as a personal user.
So for the ones that had enjoyed a short taste of ‘on-line comraderie’ in MUD-like games where they could interact with people from all over the world - this was a huge step backwards.
But to each problem there is at least one solution and in this case the solution came with another three letter acronym - the BBS.
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