Pandanet (originally and sometimes called IGS, short for Internet Go Server), located in Tokyo, Japan, is a
server
Server may refer to:
Computing
*Server (computing), a computer program or a device that provides functionality for other programs or devices, called clients
Role
* Waiting staff, those who work at a restaurant or a bar attending customers and su ...
that allows players of the game of
Go to observe and play against others over the Internet. Started February 2, 1992, by Tim Casey, Chris Chisolm, and Mark Okada, working out of the University of New Mexico, and until April 5, 1993, continued at the University of California, Berkeley, and UC San Francisco (with an additional server at The Pasteur Institute, France), it was the first server of its kind. After its initial inception some of its members helped to improve the server by writing software with a graphical interface; and thus IGS was born. Pandanet hosts up to 3,000 players at a time, depending on the time of day. Its PC client's name is GoPanda.
History
IGS was first opened to the public in February 1992. The first server was located at the
University of New Mexico
The University of New Mexico (UNM; es, Universidad de Nuevo México) is a public research university in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Founded in 1889, it is the state's flagship academic institution and the largest by enrollment, with over 25,400 ...
. Within the first year, two more servers were deployed, one at the University of California at Berkeley and one at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, France. Leaving the UC servers in 1993, it continued at the University of Pennsylvania for a year until being bought by the Korean ISP nuri.net in 1994. In 1995, the Japanese company NKB Inc., a partner of nuri.net, acquired IGS, and created the division "Pandanet" in 1996, which has managed IGS since.
The first professional player to sign-on to IGS was
Jiang Zhujiu
Jiang Zhujiu (; born February 17, 1962 in Taiyuan) is a Chinese professional Go player.
Biography
Jiang began playing Go when he was 6. In 1982, he was 5 dan, and 1987 he was promoted to 7 dan. Earlier in his career, he competed in some of ...
-9 dan-, on April 24, 1992, which started the trend of high level dan player membership that continues to this very day. Through the months of July and August of that year the first professional tournament was hosted, with over 300 games played.
In September of that year Japan's famous Meijin Sen tournament was displayed live on IGS to an audience from many nations. Played in an Amsterdam hotel room by Kobayashi Koichi and Otake Hideo, the game was typed play-by-play by users jansteen and AshaiRey respectively, while watching the game on TV. It was witnessed by over 100 observers on IGS and took 16 hours to complete.
A translation command was added to the server in December 1992, allowing users to better communicate with one another, and to translate the long list of commands required to run the early versions of the software.
Other activities
Besides being a Go server, Pandanet also hosts several art galleries. The main gallery contains Japanese and Chinese art that has a Go-related theme. Other galleries deal with vintage Go photographs and photography from the 19th and early 20th century, related to San Francisco and
Chinatown
A Chinatown () is an ethnic enclave of Chinese people located outside Greater China, most often in an urban setting. Areas known as "Chinatown" exist throughout the world, including Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Africa and Austra ...
.
Pandanet broadcasts live championship matches for top professional events, including the
Meijin
is one of the eight titles in Japanese professional shogi, and is the most prestigious title, along with Ryūō. The word ''meijin'' (名 ''mei'' "excellent, artful", 人 ''jin'' "person") refers to a highly skilled master of a certain field (t ...
,
Honinbo
In the history of Go in Japan, the four Go houses were four major schools of Go instituted, supported, and controlled by the state, at the beginning of the Tokugawa shogunate. (There were also many minor houses.) At roughly the same time shogi w ...
, and
Judan titles, and the
Ricoh Cup
The Liguang Cup (), or Ricoh Cup, was a Chinese Go competition. It was held 15 times from 2000 to 2015.
Outline
This tournament was sponsored by "Ricoh
is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational imaging and electronics company ...
professional
Pairs
Concentration, also known as Memory, Shinkei-suijaku (Japanese meaning "nervous breakdown"), Matching Pairs, Match Match, Match Up, Pelmanism, Pexeso or simply Pairs, is a card game in which all of the cards are laid face down on a surface and tw ...
tournament.
See also
*
Go competitions
This is a list of professional Go tournaments, for competitors in the board game of ''Go''. The tradition, initiated by the Honinbo Tournament in Japan, is for an event to be run annually, leading up to a title match and the award of a title for ...
*
KGS Go Server The KGS Go Server, known until 2006 as the Kiseido Go Server, is a game server first developed in 1999 and established in 2000 for people to play Go. The system was developed by William M. Shubert and its code is now written entirely in Java. In S ...
Notes
External links
*
Official Website
List of internet Go serverson
Sensei's Library Sensei's Library (commonly referred to as SL among Go-players) is an Internet website and wiki
A wiki ( ) is an online hypertext publication collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience, using a web browser. A typical wiki conta ...
List of internet Go serverson
Free Internet Correspondence Games Server (FICGS)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pandanet
Go servers