TinyMUD

TinyMUD is the name both of a certain implementation of a Multi-User Dungeon server, and the first MUD run using that implementation. The MUD itself has subsequently come to be known as "TinyMUD Classic" or simply "Classic", or occasionally "DaisyMUD" (since in its final days, it ran on a computer named "daisy").

The TinyMUD server was originally written by James Aspnes in mid-to-late 1989. He announced the availability of the first TinyMUD on August 19, 1989; seven months later, on April 29, 1990, he announced TinyMUD's closure (due to the process size exceeding the memory limit on the host system). People who have been "mudding" continuously since those days are referred to as "dinosaurs" or "dinos."

Aspnes released the code to TinyMUD -- which he once described as "a weekend hack that got out of control" -- resulting in later non-Aspnes versions; additionally, others extended and modified it into such variants as TinyMUCK, TinyMUSH, TinyMUX, and TinyMUSE. MUCK and MUSH are now said to stand for "Multi-User Created Kingdom" and "Multi-User Shared Hallucination", but these are backronyms; originally they were simple plays on the notion of "mud." Other MUD servers such as UberMUD, UnterMUD, TeenyMUD and MOO were written by TinyMUD participants but are not directly derived from the TinyMUD code.

As early as the original run of TinyMUD Classic, other MUDs using the TinyMUD server began emerging; since then, literally hundreds of MUDs based on TinyMUD and its derivatives have existed.

See also

• Category:MU* servers
• Category:MU* games

External Links

• Lauren Burka's MUDdex