A little levity: "computerized FRPG"

[Zane H. Healy]

At 8:53 AM -0700 7/5/07, Scott Austin wrote:
>Zane,
>
>A few months ago, I came across Flying Buffalo ( 
>http://www.flyingbuffalo.com ), an old PBM company founded in 1970 
>that is still running.  I contacted the owner who still had records 
>of my account from 30 years ago!  He says I have 95 cents left in my 
>account, though I didn't ask if that was in 1976 dollars.
>
>Kinda pulling this back on-topic, when I played back in the late 
>1970's, every 2-weeks or so I would receive the new game status on 
>yellow teletype paper!
>
>He says, ( http://www.flyingbuffalo.com/history.htm ) they first 
>rented time on a CDC 3300, then later bought a Raytheon 704 
>minicomputer-  over $30,000 total. "Sigh. And it only had 4K of 
>memory!".  From there they bought a Poly 88 computer kit, a North 
>Star Horizon and then IBM clones.

Tends to give a new understanding to the cost per turn.  I hadn't 
realized that Flying Buffalo started the PBM industry (I have some of 
their books in my archives), and I had no idea that either they or 
PBM games were still around.  I never played as I couldn't get over 
the cost per turn.

Interesting details on an obscure use of rented computer time! :^)

Zane

-- 
| Zane H. Healy                    | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com (primary)    | OpenVMS Enthusiast         |
| MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet)           | Classic Computer Collector |
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