VISION OF THE FUTURE (one guy's version)
By Bill Rapp

I hate to say so, but I believe that the computer is going to replace PBM gaming
as we know it. The trend is there for all to examine, and in a matter of as
little as twenty years, the civilized countries of world will be utilizing the
computer to routinely sent E-Mail instead of a physical letter. For the un-
initiated, this refers to computer files sent back and forth over the telephone
lines without the hassles of the postal service.

An example of this trend can be seen in the wide acceptance of fax machines.
Nine out of ten offices in the U.S. have installed them in the past two years.
Fax transmissions allow immediate gratification, and even the U.S. government
has set precedent on the legal status of a fax transmission. It's only a matter
of time and technology before computer transmissions become the norm.

E-MAIL gaming is growing... The big boys; Compuserve, GEnie, and Prodigy offer
"real time" games that allow you to interact with other subscribers while
on-line. The costs of some of these services were too stiff for my pocket book.

On the other end of the spectrum, the little guys run amateur BBS's, which offer
simplier faire. More often than not, the games that are offered are free. But,
there were two distinct dilemmas I always was confronted with while playing
these BBS games: the games offered were either too simplistic, or they were not
balanced. Who wants to pay long distance charges to play a game of hangman? In
contrast, there are good BBS games to play that allow you to do one turn a day.
Unfortunately, I found that the ones I liked were open- ended, and I was
typically the 773rd player to sign up. I'd log on daily, play my position for
several turns, until one of the older player's noticed that "fresh meat" had
signed on... The following day, my promising empire was a footnote in the
annuals of history. That's what I mean by "no balance."

About six months ago, PTS entered the E-Mail market with WCVIEW. During this
time, our E-Mail growth has been phenominal! Without any real fanfare, WCVIEW is
used by over 150 players and continues to grow daily.

WCVIEW is a graphically oriented support program and allows players to do their
turn on any MS-Dos computer system. Some of the features include the ability to
zoom in/out on your map; watch your plotted movements phase-by-phase; highlight
storms, combat, dead units, spy mapping, and much, much more! When a player
completes his turn to his/her satisfaction, he calls our BBS and sends the
completed turn for processing. Approximately one day later, he calls back and
picks up his results...

Enjoy the march of technology - it is inevitable, and the changes it brings will
improve the way PBM is conducted!