History
The first Internet chess server, named the Internet Chess Server (ICS), started in January, 1992. Volunteers coded and ran it free of charge. In 1995, administrators began charging players for membership and changed the name to ICC.
Unhappy with the commercialisation of ICS, which they saw as exploiting their work, a handful of programmers, led by Chris Petroff, formed FICS and gave users free, unrestricted access. The server debuted March 3, 1995.
FICS is a non-profit site, administered entirely by volunteers. There are approximately 330,000 registered accounts. In 2010 it had over 86,000 active players who played a total of almost 21 million games.
Read more about this topic: Free Internet Chess Server
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“What has history to do with me? Mine is the first and only world! I want to report how I find the world. What others have told me about the world is a very small and incidental part of my experience. I have to judge the world, to measure things.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)
“The history of our era is the nauseating and repulsive history of the crucifixion of the procreative body for the glorification of the spirit.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“The myth of independence from the mother is abandoned in mid- life as women learn new routes around the mother—both the mother without and the mother within. A mid-life daughter may reengage with a mother or put new controls on care and set limits to love. But whatever she does, her child’s history is never finished.”
—Terri Apter (20th century)