From: bazan@socrates.ucsf.edu (Fernando Bazan%Fletterick)
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud
Subject: MicroMUSE in SF Chronicle
Summary: MicroMUSE makes the News!
Keywords: MicroMUSE, news, San Francisco
Date: 15 Apr 92 17:09:01 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Biochemistry Dept., University of California, San Francisco

What follows is a column that appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle
on Tuesday, April 14, 1992. I thought it might interest you folks.
I was really pleased to see an article in the press that presented
MU* in a favorable, even positive manner. I think with more exposure
of this nature, the future of MU* could be a lot brighter.

Enjoy! And say "hi" and "thanks" to Scribe if you see him floating
around the net....

This is not my account, so make sure any email goes to me.

F. Jon Kull
kull@msg.ucsf.edu
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by Jon Carroll

The Man Behind the MUSE

Lately, armed with only my trusty modem, I have been wandering though
cyberspace and spending time in a computer at MIT wherein lives a
wonderful new world called MicroMUSE.

I suppose MicroMUSE is one of those virtual reality things; I have come to 
distrust the phrase "virtual reality" the way, in another era, I came to
distrust the word "lifestyle". But it's definately a computer-based semi-
imaginary community, so it must be part of (cross your fingers when you 
say it) virtual reality.

MUSE stands for Multi-User Simulation Environment; the environment in this
case is a space station called Cyberion City. There are 6000 "rooms" in
the space station and more than 47,000 "objects"; it's a big place. It's 
all text-based - there are no graphics - but then "Moby Dick" was a text-
based adventure, too. It's a pretty vigorous form.

A visitor logs on and begins to wander. Like any wanderer, the visitor
stumbles on things - a game based on "The Wizard of Oz," say; or a space
shuttle to Moscow; or the administrative offices of Cyberion City; or
a cluster of private residences.

So fine; so fun. But Cyberion City is essentially an educational device;
pretty soon, once you've registered your character, you get to start 
creating objects yourself. With time and persistence, you could create
a whole land - maybe a game based on "Moby Dick," right there in Sector 7.

That's the Multi-User part; every user is also a builder. It's a playground
filled with tools and toys, growing symbiotically and unexpectedly.
Sounds almost Utopian, doesn't it? Feels that way, too.

So I was bumbling about talking to people, trying to learn more about
the inner workings of MicroMUSE, and I was told that the very inventor
of the entire system, Mr. MUSE himself, lived in the Bay Area.

In Cyberion City, he's "Jin" (I'm "Scribe," by the way - yuck yuck); in     
real life he's Stan Lim and works at a Prominent Computer Company
(herein after PCC) on the Peninsula. We made a date; I drove down to see
him.

PCC has its own industrial park in one of those towns where'd you'd expect
it to be; there are little paths and gazebos and fountains in between
the sleek, anonymous buildings. Stan Lim, I figured, must be one of the
superstars of the company, the guy who gets trotted out for visiting
dignitaries - "this is our Mr. Lim, you know, MicroMUSE and all that."

Off by several orders of magnitude.

Stan Lim is 23 years old, an electrical engineer at PCC; he has a small
cubicle next to the machine shop. He invented MicroMUSE three years ago,
when he was a senior at Cal State Fresno. It's all a labor of love, all
volunteer; he's never received a penny from MicroMUSE; doesn't expect to.

Does PCC know about MicroMUSE? "Oh, no," says Stan Lim. "I haven't told
them. I don't know what they'd think."

He emphasizes that Cyberion City was a joint enterprise, its directors
scattered all over the country. Only one, Barry Kort, a specialist in
artificial intelligence working at MIT, is near the actual machine. And
many of the key players in Cyberion City are even younger than Lim.

"Our chief code hacker is 14," he says matter-of-factly. "Our youngest
citizen is, let's see, 7 now. Kids really get into it fast; they make me
feel old." Just when you thought future shock was slowing down...

For more information on MicroMUSE, log on to your local Internet host
and e-mail micro-muse-registration@chezmoto.ai.mit.edu. 

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