MrEdCollins wrote:
I used to be an Administrator on both FICS.
I knew the admin FoxBat at FICS. He gave me tons of information on the founding and creation of ICS, then ICC and finally FICS.
chess stories from in the beginning of internet
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batgirl wrote:
Yahoo Chess was a joke. It had a great interface and was a good place to meet a friend for a private game, but as a chess server it isn't even worth mentioning.
I agree with this 100%. Here's the proof. Note that this article is also probably 16 years old.
Well heck I forgot yahoo and many other sites I missed none I played them all! Chessworld.net sends me we miss you stuff. Still a member there.
I even played boris spassky on tje russian internet!
Reall nice person. But I was toldnot to play there. That was in very beginning 1993. I could never list all the sites I played on! I liked yahoo board but I never stay anywhere long. I like to try them all .I was undefeated on some sites one was called plasticbishop.com. they closed about 2 years ago.
batgirl wrote:
I knew the admin FoxBat at FICS. He gave me tons of information on the founding and creation of ICS, then ICC and finally FICS.
You will enjoy this article, but I suspect you've read this before, possibly many years ago.
I got offers to test programs back then batgirl but I did not because I was to undependable I never was
On obe site enough. Sometimes I played 6 or 7 sitesIin a nite.
Oops typos sorry
Apr 9, 2015
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#28
MrEdCollins wrote:
batgirl wrote:
I knew the admin FoxBat at FICS. He gave me tons of information on the founding and creation of ICS, then ICC and finally FICS.
You will enjoy this article, but I suspect you've read this before, possibly many years ago.
Yes, I know most of that...in fact I think I remember having read that particular page at some point it time. The idea of *paying* to play chess was really revolutionary. The benefits were obvious, but it demanded a paradigm shift many people couldn't make even though the WWW was still relatively virgin territory.
Apr 9, 2015
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#29
I never played on a Russian site... but once I somehow got to a Russian Go telnet server. I don't play Go and I can't speak Russian, so I didn't stay there long.
batgirl wrote:
I never played on a Russian site... but once I somehow got to a Russian Go telnet server. I don't play Go and I can't speak Russian, so I didn't stay there long.
In Russia, Go plays you, young lady 
See that, RonaldJosephCote?
batgirl wrote:
Yahoo Chess was a joke. It had a great interface and was a good place to meet a friend for a private game, but as a chess server it isn't even worth mentioning.
I think i've played more games there than on any other site
"Shoulda Coulda Woulda"
When that happened I got pn their internet looking for chess sites. Because there were hardly any yet.
In the begining there were only about 25. Members
On romans site when I joined. So batgirl I was curious if russia made any progress with chess sites. They really had not. A guy comes up and asks
Me in english what I am doing I told him looking
For chess sites it turned out to be boris. I was there about. 2 hours and I left. He was a very nice person
To talk too. Contrary to belief a lot of russian spoke
English back then.
Apr 9, 2015
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#35
batgirl wrote:
IMpatzer wrote:
At the start of the internet there were very few chess sites to play on.there was the icc. Chess.net grandmaster romans site. Chessmaster live. Grandmaster chess owned by seirawan. Gamezone where I played before I tried chess.net I was invited thete one night. What was fun in those days you ccould go play as a guest without joining. Even more fun in speed chess you could give your opponent more time and beat him twice. Lol now. On chessmaster you had to pick a name but could go in an out be anybody you wanted. I had boris beltzem. Smashing pumkins brain surgeons r us mr labotamy. Hammercity. Just to name a few. They stopped letting you give your opponent extra time killed all the never did know why they stopped it.
I've played on most of those places... you left out FICS though.
But I have a question about the Chessmaster site. Chessmaster operated a site. I played there around 1996-7. It disappeared in 1997 and was supposedly replaced by one on which you could only play via a Chessmaster program (I think - that was a long time ago). But for years I've looking for anyone who remembers the very first Chessmaster playing site. It used a highly configurable interface that consisted of little windows that could be moved anywhere. The board itself was woodgrained and the fancy set was red and white. I think they were configurable too. It took a long time to load, even with a 14.4k modem, but once it loaded it ran flawlessly even on my 486sx computer with 4mg RAM.
I played online for the first time about 1990. I remember it looking like Chessmaster, but my brother (on whose computer I was playing) tells me that it was something else. My brother helped with some of the early programming for ICC/FICS (before the one became two).
Apr 9, 2015
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#36
batgirl wrote:
Yahoo Chess was a joke. It had a great interface and was a good place to meet a friend for a private game, but as a chess server it isn't even worth mentioning.
Yahoo was never a chess server. Until Chess.com, there was a clear difference between chess websites and chess servers. See http://www.edcollins.com/chess/yahoo-vs-servers.htm (still more true than not).
Apr 9, 2015
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#37
My wife and I, when we were dating (1998), used chess.net to chat because we lived 100 miles apart and long distance phone charges (something kids these days do not understand) ran over $300 per month.
Internet was cheaper, especially once I learned to use my university account at home.
Interesting review of on-line chess history. Thanks.
I remember your page.