VAX

adjective Used in many phrases (eg. 'on the VAX', 'VAX MUD', 'VAX version') to describe the first public incarnation of MUD2 (as MUD version 4B). It actually ran on several BT-owned VAXen between 1985 and 1991, but there was a strong line of continuity between them and any changes were imperceptible to players not specifically looking for differences. On the VAX, MUD2 was crippled by other programs also running on the same machine, which meant it was incredibly slow at times. This wasn't helped by the fact that the BT people insisted it was programmed in VAX Pascal so they didn't have to buy a C compiler, and VAX Pascal is monstrously inefficient at certain tasks (eg. memory management). Of course, BT bought a C compiler for the VAX about 6 months after the programming of MUD2 was complete...