Re: Re: [Cat's History]

Hey! Who's tellin da story ya young punk!

Yeah, onelist, forgot that name, though maybe onelist just morpehed into 
egroups and then swallowed by yahoo.



David E. Cohen wrote:
> 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.
>>
>>
> 
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