Re: Re: [Cat's History]

You forgot the onelist interval between egroups and yahoo.  Or was onelist 
first?

Also, it was 79 boards.  Grampa.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ray Setzer" <[email protected]>
To: "The White Wolf" <[email protected]>; "Ray Setzer" 
<[email protected]>; "Cat-23 NGame" <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, March 26, 2008 1:11 PM
Subject: Re: [CAT23-Ngame] Re: [Cat's History]


> Skooch closer children, the tale of the Cat is about to begin.
>
> Way way, back in 10 BBS (Before Brittany Spears), late 80's ish, the
> internet just was a toy, kept in boxes by faceless and cruel
> corporations like AOL, Compuserve, Prodigy, and GEnie. Here were
> gathered the nerds of the world, forced to labor in ASCII hell, confined
> to specific forums and sorted out by their nature into categories. This
> is the story of the little Cat who could, a collection of rogue
> diplomats who lived deep in the recesses of excess server space in the
> General Electric corporation under the cruel whip of Scorpio, the games
> forum mistress who confined them to a cell labeled CATagory23.
>
> But the Cat did not spring out of being entirely unbidden, it was born
> as a tumor on the underbelly of the Usenet, out of the Electronic
> Protocal E-mag, which itself was pioneer publication spun off of the Dip
> by mail Zine - Protocol. A guy named Xorg challenged the Dip gods of the
> time was was cast out into the wilderness, where after the requisite
> period of wandering in the void, started the first tentative games on
> GEnie, an upstart BBS that lived as a poor sister to the Compuserve's,
> AOL's and Prodigy's of this captive internet universe.
>
> Your humble author found his way to this oasis as a replacement in Dip
> Game 4 which eventually ran to a four way draw somewhere in the 1920's.
> Long did we play in this garden of Diplomacy, and members streamed in
> from far and wide. The call would go out for a Pie Fight and members
> would run to their pantries and all come streaming out to avenge past
> slights and create new ones, and endless version of the Hatfield-McCoy
> feud. All the while however, no once noticed the storm clouds gathering
> on the horizon. But eventually the beast named the World Wide Web had
> gobbled up so much that its bloated body could no longer be ignored. -
> Come, join me - it beckoned - free yourselves from the shackles of $9.95
> a month access to services that allow you access only for ten hours a
> month and only to what is contained upon its own servers, for vast
> though that may be, I, the World Wide Web, make it look insignificant.
> -- Marvel to the ability to send emails to ANYONE, not just to other
> members of your captive universe!
>
> And strong was the force in this one, for the trickle soon became a
> stampede as the masses broke from their cages and abandoned their BBS
> shackles for the ever growing, ever ravenous World Wide Web. Soon, the -
> Going out of business - Everything Must GO! sign appeared marked in soap
> on the front windows of GEnie, and the Diplomats of Cat23 gathered
> together into an arc, two from every supply center, and set off in
> search of higher ground.
>
> Swimmers were sent off in every direction to find dry land, and soon one
> returned with wonderful news. Off in a strange and wonderful country
> called 'Canada', there existed a wizard who could create "Listservers",
> and this great and powerful wizard was willing to grant to the wandering
> diplomats two in order that they might continue to slay the mighty
> Juggernauts and return the Orb of Lepanto to its rightful place.
>
> Eventually the reputation of these warriors grew to the point where they
> required a larger castle and they moved to Egroups, which in turn was
> gobbled up by Yahoo as the World Wide Web sought to ingest the Diplomats
> and use their skills to conquer the world. And conquer they did, for
> AOL, the last great holdout of the BBS wars, opened the gates for
> unlimited hours of access, which, in the way of all things, resulted in
> no hours of access for most who found their lives reduced to a busy
> signal, for in these days, a 9600 Baud Modem was the dream of every
> pimple faced high school kid.
>
> And so the great migration began. Like a Lemmings in a Disney nature
> documentary they Diplomats streamed out of BBS lands and their busy
> signal caused NMR's in search of better access to supply centers, and
> there, like a shining jewel on the hill, Cat23 awaited them with
> flashing neon signs proclaiming DIP-DIP-DIP, And LIVE DIPLOMATS INSIDE.
> The barkers stood outside on the sidewalks inviting the new arrivals
> into the dimly lit rooms where the promise of unguarded neutrals
> awaited. And so the newbies did arrive, first by the tens, then by the
> hundreds, until the barkers were overwhelmed, and every time they
> announced the opening of a new Dip Show, a crowd of dozens would gather
> and wave their arms, yelling - Choose Me! While inside awaited the
> sharks....the Webanator, Doc Oly, Faust, the Ice Queen among others who
> eagerly fleeced the newbies of their dots.
>
> And as the Cat grew wealthy, it set its sights on larger goals. There
> were many additional Dip islands appearing in the sea spread throughout
> the world. All laid claim to be the best and brightest Diplomats in all
> the land, and yearned to test their mettle against the pretenders from
> the next island over, and would gesture to them - Come over and play. To
> which the challengers would reply - No, YOU come over here.
>
> It was during a chance conversation between this author and a Romanian
> dissident known as Mizti, in a small flat in a London suburb called
> Subuton, owned by Toby Harris, a mysterious and powerful figure who's
> name was spoken in whispers though the Diplomacy universe, that the idea
> for a neutral forum where Diplomacy gladiators from the world over could
> send their representatives to settle the question of who could kick
> who's ass once and for all. It was decided to create a project called
> the Worldmasters Diplomacy Tournament. A Team and Individual tournament
> held on a neutral site. A shadowy cabal worked the Diplomatic back
> alleys to set things up and create the rules while The Diplomats
> streamed in, team by team, coming from around the world. From all over
> Europe, North and South America, OZ, New Zealand, Israel, South Africa,
>  India and all points of the compass they came. Over one hundred boards
> sat down to play at the same time, the members of each team spread about
> to face other teams and bring back tales of triumph and tragedy to the
> home campfires. As in all sports, the odds makers found the lure
> irresistible, and even the legendary bookmaker Nathan Detroit came,
> seeking the piece of the action. Virtual brawls broke out in the chat
> forums, reputations were made, sullied and then made anew. A good time
> was had by all.
>
> And so, for one brief and shining moment, the little CATagory23, a
> refugee from the internet tenements, stood atop the hill and looked down
> on the world and said.......Ven-Tri...yes I understand now.
>
>