Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Eric Miller on February 25, 2008 at 4:07pm

I remember GEnie's Wargame Roundtable as an intimate precurser to CSW. It was not unusual to exchange messages daily with "big" names in the business.

Well, "big" in that day, before instant Internet gratification. Play By Mail back then meant stock markets and stamps. Q and A were answered by submitting questions phrased to be answered as Yes or No and accompanied by SASE.

For someone like me, it was my first exposure to the likes of Rex Martin, Richard Berg and Don Greenwood. Prior to GEnie, I had no idea there were actually so many wargamers out there.

Permalink Reply by John Kranz on February 25, 2008 at 4:21pm

Eric, your post reminded me of the live game auctions that were held on GEnie. I remember picking up a bunch of games one time during a nightly session. Lots of memories there to be sure (and, yes, I have more of them I'll have to share later!)

Permalink Reply by Marc Guenette on March 1, 2008 at 1:36pm

Wow. This is where it all started.

Permalink Reply by John Kranz on March 1, 2008 at 1:38pm

Yes, I'd have to say that GEnie reminds me of my first online/wargaming nirvana in terms of how it shaped my enthusiasm to get engaged in the hobby again. And of course my wallet would suffer as a consequence as well, in being able to learn about new game titles and having access to online game trading.

Permalink Reply by Carl Paradis on March 3, 2008 at 8:59pm

Yes, before the Internet! I started playtesting from some companies there. Hey I even chatted with RHB! I still have old perforated Epsom printer matrix sheets with some of the GEnie discussions that I printed for safekeeping. LOL!!! Boy I feel old now. :^)

Permalink Reply by Bruce Monnin on March 3, 2008 at 6:37pm

What I remember about GEnie was that I had no way to dial in with a local number, so I would get double hit with the long distance phone call and the GEnie fees.

But GEnie had this neat feature that let all text on the screen get captured by a text file. So I would call in and log on, then have all the new messages in the topics I was interested in scroll by so fast I couldn't even read it. Then I would logoff and hang up the phone (so to speak) and bring up the text file to slowly read all the messages.

I would type up all my replies in a text file before logging back on, then would cut and paste my replies into the correct forums. It was still expensive as heck, but at the time it was so hard to find other gamers that it was worthwhile.

Permalink Reply by Eric Miller on March 3, 2008 at 6:59pm

PCAladdin was the name of the program. Neat bit of programming.

Permalink Reply by Marc Guenette on March 4, 2008 at 10:44am

I remember discovering guys selling and buying games in there... Didn't it existed... My first buy were Up Front/Banzai/Desert War for 45$... Shipping included... Mouhahah... That aid I bought a second set and organized tournament at Cangames. Still one of my favourite game over all... Learned the game thru Greg Courter's ladder, One two cards a day... That was fun.

Permalink Reply by John Kranz on March 23, 2008 at 11:33am

Yes, the rate increase and business model at GEnie definitely killed our presence there. And I now recall the ability to capture a text session automatically to review it later. I wish there was a way I could go through the GEnie experience again just so I could remember exactly what it was like (just for kicks).

And someone has a good memory...manzana was the domain name of the server I started loading all those game images on for publishers. How times have changed (for the better!)....