A Short History of PBMServ.. 11/20/98

pbmserv started on June 8th, 1994 as an experiment in automated email processing. I had been playing Trax on a server at UC Berkeley (munch@soda.berkeley.edu) but was bouncing between email addresses weekly (it seemed), and the administrator there was hand maintaining the user database, etc. I decided to create a "generic" email processor for playing games, and pbmserv was born. I ran it on my office machine during its initial development and announced it to the public in June of 1994. Trax and Twixt were first two games on it. It ran as pbmserv@netcom.com for a while, but as the number of games grew, I was rapidly running out of my 5MB space allotment so I moved the server to my office machine (pbmserv@vtsu.prc.com) in March of 1995. By this time, pbmserv supported: Trax, Twixt, Hex, Abalone and C++Robots. And we were averaging 163 requests (moves, etc.) per day.

This worked great. The number of games supported grew and grew with lots of help from Soren (pingel). However, it was getting quite hard to manage all those games when bugs were found or new features were added (there were each seperately maintained code bases). So, Soren and I designed a set of C++ classes for the server, and ported the games on the server to that. Now new features and bug fixes can be easily done (and only need doing in one place).

However, the evil office monster reared its ugly head in early June 1996. It seems someone (high in the PRC food chain) was doing a net search on the company and they were dismayed with 12 of the top 20 matches for the company were related to <gasp!> GAMES! I was ordered to shutdown. I moved the server to my home machine over a 28.8 modem as pbmserv@rognlie.mnsinc.com for a few weeks, while I looked for a new job that would not be so "uptight" about leisure activities. The only real downside was that the switch to my home machine killed C++Robots. When I wrote it, there were some *serious* architecture dependencies. And the move to an Intel based machine was fatal. During this time pbmserv was averaging ~1375 requests/day (before the great move) down to ~750 requests/day with mnsinc. It seems they assigned me a static IP but didn't expect me to *use* it. So, every few days, they'd disable my account, and kick me off the network. D'oh!

In early July, 1996 (~1800 requests/day), I changed jobs, and the server became pbmserv@eiss.erols.com. Still over a 28.8 modem, but I was no longer in danger from the "you've been connected too long we're shutting you down" behaviour that mnsinc enforced. We continued to limp along in this manner until November 1996 (~2300 requests/day) when I convinced management that we needed an internal majordomo (mailing list manager) host, and as long as I was the admin for that, I could host pbmserv there. The server became pbmserv@majordomo.erols.com.

It soon became apparent that the server still needed its own host, so I moved an old 486 to the office, and the server reverted to pbmserv@eiss.erols.com again in February 1997 (~1800 requests/day). I also decided that I wanted my own domain name just in case I ever decided to leave the employ of Erols.com. So in April 1997 (~2350 requests/day), pbmserv@gamerz.net was born.

In May 1997, I rewrote C++Robots from scratch in a much more portable format, and also divorced it from the pbmserv@gamerz.net system. Also, Firetop Mountain (fm@gamerz.net) was also moved to its own unique address.

pbmserv@gamerz.net continues to grow. It currently supports 50+ games, 1200+ users and 3500 requests/day. And when I leave Erols at the end of the year, we may have a down time of a couple hours while I move the machine, but gamerz.net will contiue.

Newsgroups: rec.games.pbm,rec.games.abstract,rec.games.board,rec.games.misc
From: rrognlie@netcom.com (Richard Rognlie)
Subject: PBeM Server is on-line
Message-ID: <rrognlieCr3JKq.MHM@netcom.com>
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL1]
Date: Wed, 8 Jun 1994 20:58:01 GMT
Lines: 16


Richard's Generic Play-by-EMail (PBeM) server is now online!

After much begging, pleading and groveling to the powers that be at
NETCOM.COM, I have finally got my generic PBeM server online.  To
start, the only game supported is Trax.  Additional announcements will
be made as other games come on-line.

Send mail to pbmserv@netcom.com with 'help' as the subject line for
additional information.

Richard Rognlie
-- 
  /\/\/\  | Richard Rognlie / Sr. Computer Analyst / PRC Inc. / McLean, VA
 /  \ \ \ | E-Mail: rrognlie@netcom.com *or* rognlie_richard@prc.com
 \  / / / | Phone:  (Home) (703) 361-4764   (Office) (703) 556-2458
  \/\/\/  |                                 (Fax)    (703) 556-1174

From: Richard Rognlie <rrognlie@vtsu.prc.com>
Subject: pbmserv is dead...
Date: 1996/06/06
Message-ID: <31B72AAB.167EB0E7@vtsu.prc.com>#1/1
content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
organization: PRC Inc.
mime-version: 1.0
newsgroups: rec.games.board,rec.games.abstract
x-mailer: Mozilla 2.0 (X11; I; SunOS 4.1.4 sun4)



Due to a management request, pbmserv@vtsu.prc.com is permanently disabled.
 
I hope to relocate it to a new host shortly, and will try to keep you all
informed.  I apologize for the lack of notice, but I was just informed of
the decision 20 minutes ago.
 
If you have *any* links to the pbmserv home page
        http://coyote.vtsu.prc.com:8080/~pbmserv
or
        http://140.188.198.26:8080/~pbmserv
 
please delete them.  PRC Inc wishes to divorce itself from any
association with "games"...  It appears that someone did a search on
"prc.com" and/or "prc inc." and they were surprised by some of the
pages that were returned.  8^/
 
If someone has a host they can "donate" to the cause, it would be
appreciated.  It will be the better part of a week (or 2) before
pbmserv can be "expected" back.
 
I wish to thank you all for your support in the past and wish you the 
best in the future...
 
Richard
Your former (and hopefully future) pbmserv administrator
 
-- 
 /  \__  | Richard Rognlie / Pr. Computer Analyst / PRC Inc. / McLean, VA
 \__/  \ | E-Mail: rrognlie@vtsu.prc.com      rognlie@mnsinc.com       
 /  \__/ | Phone:  (Office) (703) 556-2458    (Home) (703) 361-4764   
 \__/    | WWW:    http://coyote.vtsu.prc.com:8080/~rrognlie