The Ever Wise Boonton

Before the world of web browsers and instant messengers there were MOO's. A step above simple chat rooms and a step below the 'virtual worlds' of online gaming, MOO's were interactive chat where you maintain a permanent presence in the form of a character. They included not only chat but mailing lists, role playing games (if your old enough, think back to the days of Zork and the Scott Adams Adventures...pure text). Anyway LambdaMOO is the best and until about a week ago it was still around. It is the best because it is the most popular, online societies need population and with 100-200 people logged on at any given time LambdaMOO had it. Being a MOO, you don't access it by using a web browser directly. You use a program called telnet (you probably have it, just select 'run' and type in 'telnet'). Since the interface was pre-web, the medium was never invaded by the commercial spam that plagues Usenet and chat rooms. Word over on YibMOO is that Rog, Lambda's current caretaker, is having DSL trouble at his home and Lambda may be down until the end of the month. This is the longest I ever remember Lambda being down (and Boonton has graced its presence for over 10 years). Hopefully the society will remain undamaged by the outage but it is quite disturbing how difficult it is to get information. Sadly, no one has ever thought to maintain even a simple updated web page to let people know what's going on or who they can contact. If I get more information or you have some, please feel free to post it here in the comments. It will be a shame if the community drifts apart while we wait for the technical bugs to iron themselves out.