So about thirteen years ago at a school called Carnegie Mellon Jim Aspnes set up something called TinyMUD. While there had been MUDs around before (like AberMUD). This one had more a social atmosphere to it. There was no combat. People who connected to add onto the world. It had some simple building commands that let people build new rooms for people to explore as well as create puzzles for them to solve.

I discovered TinyMUD about 12 and a half years ago. A friend of mine had been playing around on it and told me I had to try it out. The rest, as they say, is history. I've been using MUDs ever since. I've watched people move away from TinyMUD to using other servers based on it. I've watched history be rewritten a few times. It's weird looking back and seeing how much I've changed in that time, along with everyone else. When I first started we were all in college. Now we're in our thirties (or on the verge of them) and half of us have families.

It's been an interesting time. I wonder if I'll still be hanging out on these things in another 13 years.