From: jzy@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Jim Yu)
Subject: 1992: The Frist Year of IGS
Organization: Northwestern University, Evanston Illinois.
Date: Fri, 1 Jan 1993 08:06:52 GMT

Hi, everyone!

It's now finally 1993 (except, when I start to write this, there are still
2 hours of 1992 left on west coast of North America).  

Happy New Year everyone!

Looking back, the biggest event happened in 1992 that related to Go in
Internet was probably IGS, the Go Server.  It could be the biggest event of
entire Go world in 1992 -- this might depend on the influence of IGS to the
Go world in the future, and I am very positive about it.

Personally, despite having 3 meals and 7-hour sleep a day, the struggles
in school sometimes really made me feel miserable.  Then there came the
rescue from IGS.  Playing Go, watching Go, and talking to friends -- these
all kept me positive and often I regained the confidence I lost in a lousy
quarter.  In fact, in 1992, I made more friends on IGS than in classroom,
and I am sure I made *better* friends on IGS too.  IGS saved me many times
in 1992.

And I found some IGS'ers felt the same.  They often say, "I don't know what
I would be like without IGS."  Of course, they would survive anyway, I am
sure. :-)  The truth is, Go is not as popular in North America or Europe as
in East Asia, and many American or European players couldn't find anyone
nearby who plays Go, and playing Go against oneself doesn't sound like a
fun thing. :-)  In this sense, IGS will play a significant role in
populizing and developing Go in the Western world.  Besides, IGS offers
many golden opportunities for American and European players to meet players
from Far East, and vice versa.

Here I try to recall some important dates and events of IGS 1992.  I feel
lucky that I was one of the earliest players on IGS, and I was able to
experience some exciting development of the Server.  My list is certainly
not complete, but roughly speaking, I believe it contains most of the
important events.  In the list, there are first appearances of some
professional players; I have thought to mention the first appearances of
some strong amateur players, but I couldn't come up with a good one. :-(

I have virtually used IGS names in the list.

*** IGS in 1992 ***

* February, IGS goes to public.  After many tests by tim and tweet,
  the first Go server in history is open to people with Internet access.
  Server's site is at University of New Mexico.

* March.  More and more and more and more players appear on IGS.  Some
  joke that this is the best invention since paper. :-)

* April 25, first time a professional player plays a game on IGS.  Jiang
  Jujo 9 dan, from China, uses the account "tobe" plays a game vs ychen.
  At this time, most watcher still don't know that tobe is a pro.  Only
  later when Jiang will play a half-dozen more games, people realize that 
  the strongest player in the Western world has appeared on IGS.

* June 7, a new server in France, a virtual copy of the New Mexico server,
  has its first game played.  Manager of this server is fmc.  Three days 
  later, on June 10, another new server in Berkeley is put in public use.
  The Berkeley server is to replace the New Mexico server as the main site.
  Its managers are, again, tweet and tim.  The old server, in NM, will be
  used less and less, and eventually closed.

* July-August, IGSWCT -- IGS World Championship Tournament.  Nearly 90 
  players are involved in a tournament consisting of 4 groups.  At the
  end, over 300 games are played, and all the orginization is single-handed
  by a popular kibitzer, UFO.  Player m6 is to win the championship of
  Group 1, thus earning the title IGS92.

* Meanwhile, two more professionals appear on IGS.  On July 11, Tracy Jin
  in New York uses the name "tracy" to play a game with dong.  This will
  be the only game Tracy plays on IGS in 1992.  On July 12, a former
  Taiwan Meijin, Sheah Chen, plays his first game on IGS vs zhong.  Sheah
  later will play more than a dozen games on IGS in 1992, including 
  encounters with two IGS 7-dans, khuang and lzy.  Sheah logs on from 
  University of Illinois at Urban and Champaign.

* August 31, Guo Juan, another professional player from China, plays her
  only IGS game of 1992 vs newone.  She logs from the Netherlands.

* Early September, focus shifts to Amsterdam, Holland (the Netherlands).
  The first game of 1992 Japan's Meijin Sen is to played in Amsterdam.
  With the help of some IGS'ers in Amsterdam, especailly jansteen, this
  is to be shown live on IGS.  For warmup, on September 5, Nagahara
  Yoshiaki 6-dan plays a game vs lzy.  Then on September 8, Ishida Yoshio
  9-dan, who is to be the referee of the Meijin game, plays a game vs
  dong.  Ishida-dong encounter attracts over 100 observers at one time,
  a sure unofficial record on IGS.

* September 9-10, first game of Meijin Sen 1992 is shown live on IGS.
  Kobayashi Koichi and Otake Hideo start their best-of-seven matchup in
  a hotel in Amsterdam.  Two IGS'ers, jansteen and AshaiRey, type in the 
  moves for Kobayashi and Otake, respectively, based on the information
  received from TV terminals.  The game is played in 16 hours, while 
  the kibitzing on IGS lasts 18 hours.  IGS-produced game file collects
  3053 kibitzes, worth over 140KB of memory. :-)

* October-November.  More and more and more players appear on IGS. :-)

* December, a new command, 'translate', is added to IGS.  Its function
  is to translate some Go terms among Japanese, English, Chinese, Korean,
  Germany, Dutch, and French.  From now on, many IGS Go players will 
  become linguists. :-)

* December 16, "IGS Summit." The France server manager, fmc, meets
  Berkeley server managers, tim and tweet, in San Francisco.  At 6:32
  P.M., they shook hands at the intersection of Grant Avenue and Pine
  Street in downtown San Francisco, near Chinatown.  Later they will have
  dinner together in Japantown. :-)

* I just heard the last ticks of 1992 (Boy, I've worked on this for two
  hours?  Okay it's a slow modem and a noisy phone line. :-)

Happy New Year!

Truly yours,
Jim Zijian Yu
--
Go isn't everything.  Go is the only thing.           -- zhuge