AberMUD facts for kids

AberMUD was a very important early MUD game. A MUD is a type of online game where many players can explore a text-based world together. AberMUD was special because it was the first popular game of its kind that was open source. This means its computer code was freely available for anyone to use and change.

The game got its name from Aberystwyth, a town in Wales, UK. This is where it was first created. The very first version was written in a computer language called B. It was made by Alan Cox, Richard Acott, Jim Finnis, and Leon Thrane. They were students at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. This first AberMUD started running in 1987 on a large mainframe computer.

How AberMUD Was Created

The way AberMUD played was inspired by another famous MUD called MUD1. That game was made by Roy Trubshaw and Richard Bartle at the University of Essex. Alan Cox, one of the creators of AberMUD, had played MUD1 and liked it a lot.

In late 1988, Alan Cox updated AberMUD. He rewrote it in a different computer language called C. This allowed the game to run on Unix systems. These were common computers at universities. This updated version was called AberMUD2. It ran at Southampton University.

Spreading Around the World

By early 1989, AberMUD was becoming popular. There were three versions running in the UK. One was at Southampton, another at Leeds University, and a third in London.

In January 1989, a person named Michael Lawrie shared a copy of AberMUD3. He sent it to two American players, Vijay Subramaniam and Bill Wisner. Bill Wisner then helped spread AberMUD to many other places around the world.

Later in February 1989, AberMUD3 was renamed AberMUD II. This happened after Rich Salz improved its code and made it work better on UNIX systems.

Later Versions and Legacy

In 1991, Alan Cox continued to work on the game. He created AberMUD IV and then AberMUD V. AberMUD V was even used in a computer game called Elvira. This game added graphics to the MUD experience. Later, AberMUD V was released under the GNU GPL. This made its code even more open for everyone to use.

Another version, AberMUD4, was improved by Alf Salte and Gjermund "Nicknack" Sørseth. They created a game called Dirt from it. Their final version, Dirt 3.1.2, is still used by some AberMUD games online today.

AberMUD was very important for future online games. It inspired three major types of MUDs: TinyMUD, LPMud, and DikuMUD. These games built upon AberMUD's ideas and helped shape the world of online gaming.

See also

• AberMUD family tree
• MUD
• Chronology of MUDs
• Wizard (MUD)