Modern Backgammon in Pre-Internet Era

Title: Modern Backgammon in Pre-Internet Era

Description: Read about the two milestone achievements contributed to eventual appearance of Internet Backgammon back in the 1960s.

 

In the previous part of our series of articles on backgammon transition from antiquity to modernity we reviewed the ancient origins of the backgammon, and still left at least one question unanswered: where did the backgammon players, computers and the Internet backgammon software come from?

Well, back around the mid-1940s, the first computer-like machines were conceived. They were about the size of a room in your house but as technology developed into the Information Age, the components became smaller and smaller and we now have home computers that sit atop your desk, laptop computers to take anywhere you go, and even tiny little computers that fit into gadgets, such as hand-held devices, that run on micro-batteries.

Then in 1960s, two milestone achievements, though not consequential at the time, contributed to eventual appearance of Internet Backgammon.

Prince Alexis Obolensky, known as “The Father of Modern Day Backgammon”, embarks on a personal mission to popularize the game by organizing the first major international Backgammon tournament which was held in The Bahamas in 1964. This eventually sparks a global heyday in the game that lasts well into the 1980s. A measure of this popularity is that in 1976, U.S. consumers spent more than $20,000,000 on backgammon boards.

 

Prince Alexis Obolensky with Princess Grace Kelly of Monaco at the
very first major European tournament - Monte Carlo, 1973.
Photo copyright ©1973 by Joseph Pasternack.

Then in 1969, a scientist named Lawrence Roberts headed a project to implement a network using packet-switching technology invented by Paul Baran along with Donald Davies and Leonard Kleinrock, which gives birth to the Internet as we know it today.

Internet Service Providers appeared on the scene in 1980s and people start to connect, but it was not until the 1990s that the Internet started being used by the masses.

Next up – read how the internet has changed backgammon for good "Internet Backgammon – Early Days"