Playing *Star Online

Mark Thompson and I played several moves, exploring how this would work. This is how we finally ended up, first as seen at my end of the connection, and then Mark's version. I have a Mac and Mark has Windows.

I had 3 windows on my screen:

• The AIM window which has two areas, a send area where I typed messages and dragged images, and a receive area where I can see both sides of the conversation as well as icons for the images which both of us have sent.
  
• A photoshop window where I look at the move Mark just sent and paint my response.
  
• A folder window where I store the images of the game which starts with the .gif of the empty board shown here which has red and blue patchs to use as colors for the moves. You can save this image for your own use by dragging it to your desktop or using the contextual menu.

Mark has sent me an IM (instant message) and I have opened an "image connection" by clicking "People>Start IM Image Connection ..." in the menu bar. I drag the icon for the empty board into the IM send area and send it. After about 15 seconds (we both have dial-up connections) an icon for the image appears in Mark's IM receive area. Presently an icon for Mark's response appears in my IM receive area. I double click it and it opens in an IM image window. I drag it out of the window and into my Photoshop window where I paint my reply by clicking the paint bucket in the cell I wish to move in. I save the image to the image folder (using an index in the name so that I can save all of the images of the game). I drag the icon of the last image from the folder window to the IM send window and send it. &c.

Here's what Mark had to say:
I had "Paint Shop Pro" open (which is my best image processor), and my email software (Outlook Express), and the AIM window. When I received an image, I right-clicked on it, saved it to overwrite the previous image, then went to Paint Shop Pro and opened the last-opened image (which is now the one just saved). Then I made my move, saved it, returned to AIM, and sent a message attaching the new image. At least, that's how I remember it ... I also had Zillions open and made the moves on a Zillions board, so as to have a move-by-move record of the game, but that's not essential.

Initially I (Ea) tried to drag the image directly from my Photoshop window into the IM send area. When Mark tried to open it he got an invalid format message. Based on a very brief trial with my friend Mariah who uses a Mac, I think dragging the image instead of the icon would have worked if Mark had a Mac, but I'm not positive.