Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!sgi!vjs@rhyolite.SGI.COM
From: vjs@rhyolite.SGI.COM (Vernon Schryver)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: Interactive game playing over an internet network
Summary: sounds interesting
Message-ID: <26202@sgi.SGI.COM>
Date: 5 Feb 89 23:38:22 GMT
References: <4051@ditmela.oz>
Sender: daemon@sgi.SGI.COM
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc., Mountain View, CA
Lines: 22

In article <4051@ditmela.oz>, smart@ditmela.oz (Robert Smart) writes:
> I am amazed that there don't seem to be protocols and programs for 
> supporting game playing over an internet network....
> Anybody else interested? Any existing work? Should we write an RFC?
> 
> Bob Smart, CSIRO Division of Information Technology, Australia
>            smart@ditmelb.oz.au (or smart%ditmelb.oz.au@uunet.uu.net)


A standard would be nice.  It should support not only "low-speed" games
such as chess or bridge, but also those which require at least a couple
dozen updates/second, such as Silicon Graphics' "arena" and "dogfight."

"Dogfight" has been a very useful tool for these past several years.  It
has sold lots of systems, and, since it was converted from XNS-multicast to
UDP-broadcast, killed a number of obsolete machines which happened to be on
the same networks.  (We're working on IP-multicast so "dog" can get across
gateways as well as be friendlier to old stuff.)

Vernon Schryver
Silicon Graphics
vjs@sgi.com