First Internet Backgammon Server
Encyclopedia
First Internet Backgammon Server (FIBS) is the earliest backgammon
Backgammon
Backgammon is one of the oldest board games for two players. The playing pieces are moved according to the roll of dice, and players win by removing all of their pieces from the board. There are many variants of backgammon, most of which share common traits...

 server
Server (computing)
In the context of client-server architecture, a server is a computer program running to serve the requests of other programs, the "clients". Thus, the "server" performs some computational task on behalf of "clients"...

 on the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

, operating since July 19, 1992.
FIBS allows Internet users to play backgammon in real-time against other people and tracks player performance using a modified version of the Elo rating system
Elo rating system
The Elo rating system is a method for calculating the relative skill levels of players in two-player games such as chess. It is named after its creator Arpad Elo, a Hungarian-born American physics professor....

. It was created by Andreas "Marvin" Schneider, and has been maintained since 1996 by Patti Beadles. Anyone with access to the Internet can create a username and play for free. FIBS caters to a strong international community of backgammon players. It was an "immediate success", and no other backgammon server came online until 1997.

Game play

Early users connected to FIBS via a command line interface through TELNET
TELNET
Telnet is a network protocol used on the Internet or local area networks to provide a bidirectional interactive text-oriented communications facility using a virtual terminal connection...

 similar to a MUD
MUD
A MUD , pronounced , is a multiplayer real-time virtual world, with the term usually referring to text-based instances of these. MUDs combine elements of role-playing games, hack and slash, player versus player, interactive fiction, and online chat...

, with the standard backgammon board drawn in ASCII
ASCII
The American Standard Code for Information Interchange is a character-encoding scheme based on the ordering of the English alphabet. ASCII codes represent text in computers, communications equipment, and other devices that use text...

 text. Dice
Dice
A die is a small throwable object with multiple resting positions, used for generating random numbers...

 rolls are represented numerically and moves are performed by entering starting and ending point numbers, similar to standard backgammon notation
Backgammon notation
Backgammon notation is a means for recording backgammon games, developed by Paul Magriel in the 1970s. The common way of describing the movement of checkers involves numbering the points around the board from 24 to 1 as depicted in Figure 1....

. Other game related commands are available by typing the appropriate command. The first graphical user interface
Graphical user interface
In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...

s for FIBS were developed in 1994; FIBS/W for Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...

 and MacFIBS for Mac OS
Mac OS
Mac OS is a series of graphical user interface-based operating systems developed by Apple Inc. for their Macintosh line of computer systems. The Macintosh user experience is credited with popularizing the graphical user interface...

. Graphical interfaces continue to be developed for most major computing platforms, however telnet remains the underlying protocol for FIBS. This allows anyone with access to the Internet to log into FIBS regardless of platform.
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