Teema nr2. Dead and alive, two things from early Internet times that reached us.... and not.

The topic of this week, is the early stage of the internet and two items from that era: one that is still in use
or at least familiar to users and the other one that is completely dead.

Back in nearly 90’ties, the word “internet” was still associated with “TTU lab” and weird sounds coming

from dial-up modems available to a few lucky ones at home. From these long forgotten times comes
something that is still alive today: MUME. 

MUME is one of the early MUDs, Based on Tolkien’s books, my favorite game and the sole
reason I speak and write English today. made me read all Talkien's books and find even those
that were not translated and read them also.

For those who are completely unaware of what MUDs are, it is a type of game that happens
completely inside your head. The only things that you see on your computer screen are lines
of text jumping at you:

 *a Dwarf* is here, riding a mountain mule.

Message like this brings in your head, an image of a very unfriendly Dwarf, most likely with some
hammer and stocky armour, probably not strong enough to kill you instantly, but certainly no friend
of yours, sitting on top an animal that allows this Dwarf to cover long distances without losing much
movement points.

Yes, your life agility, magic skills all depend on points and all you see around you in the game
is just more lines of code.

Despite all this, The Game was so addictive to us, young students, back in the early 90’ties that
many forgot to go to their studies and played weeks on end and finished dropping out from Uni.
I managed to keep up with my studies, but then i also never reached any heights and the path
between DT(Dark Tower) and NOC (New Orc Caves) - areas mostly populated by
Servants of Sauron - is covered in dozens of bodies of small BNs who dreamt to grow
big and strong Dark Mage, but never did :)

Why do I bring this game as an example of something that is still alive? Because there are
still people playing it. You login to https://mume.org/Client/ and pretty much start playing
straight away. And if you “Pray” and get transported to a real location, then you can type
command: 'who' and see a list of players. Still alive, still playing a text based game that was
born 30 years ago.
Hey there is even a mapper connected to it! Amazing!
So you don't have to use pieces of paper to draw maps from your memory and all secret traps
and doors and hidden exits? :) I must go play now!

Sorry no. this is the grown up me intervening. You still have the second part of you homework to write.

The second part is something that was pretty much alive in the early days and now is completely dead. 

Do you remember Matrix movies? When movie characters would pick up the phone hear the
weird modem sound and disappear down the phone line and out of the Matrix world? 

When was the last time you heard that sound in the real life? 

The dial-up modem sound that would send signals of code consisting of address,
authentication details, password, via “noise” in the phone line and connection would
occupy your phone line and take ages to connect and be very shaky. 

Those times. All dead now. 

Dial up modems are completely driven out by fast DSL/ADSL connections, some even have
fiber-optics in their houses. But this strange noise will stay forever. At least in our memory.

Now, where is that MUMe link?