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I've been trying to find anyone who remembers this chess site. It's not on the wayback machine and no one I've ever asked remembers it.
I started playing chess online in 1995-6. The very first chess site I located was one called "Chessmaster" and it was hosted by the software company Software Toolworks. Back then I has a 386sx and connected with a 14,800 baud modem. The site took several minutes to load and a tiny blue rectangular box appeared in the top left screen corner and counted down the seconds. When it finally loaded it was simply elegant with wood-grained framed movable windows for chatting, seeking, stats, game board, etc. and the ornate, trademark chessmaster pieces where red and white. Despite the slow connection and lack of computing power, it worked as smooth as silk and stayed rather busy, or so it seemed to me at the time. It was a very impressive site but it shut down after a few months. Chessmaster directed users to their Chessmaster product site where they promised to re-open soon with an improved version. However, when they finally did re-open, they required you to either buy the Chessmaster program, which had a new online feature, or download their proprietary software. I downloaded the software but it was clunkly and the site was a truly lousy multi-game platform. I think Chessmaster might have changed owners by then which may have accounted for the degradation. But the original site was wonderful and really should be legendary . . . except no one but me remembers it.