The backgammon set with its wooden board and round counters, the dice and the cup to throw them, is familiar to a huge section of the world's inhabitants. Perhaps there are areas of remote Papua New Guinea where the game has not yet penetrated, but for most of the people reading this article, explaining the components of the backgammon set is as superfluous as describing what a pack of cards contains.

The spread of the backgammon game from its ancestral home in today's Iran and Iraq, via the Roman Empire and the Arab world across the globe is a fascinating historical story. Whereas so many ancient games have been lost to us, yet how to play backgammon is known to millions of people today, is a question worth pondering. Obviously, the anonymous inventors of the game hit on a winning recipe. The backgammon rules simplicity has made the game an easy one to learn and this has certainly helped insurance its endurance. However, the adaptability of the game to changing times and tastes has without doubt made a major contribution to the game's successful transit through the ages. The transformation of the backgammon set from stone to video offers one of the clearest indications of the game's durability.

According to ancient records and archaeological evidence, the first backgammon counters were made of smooth stones, perhaps gathered from the edge of a stream. The dice would have been carved in bone. The board may have been carved or painted on a flat piece of wood, or perhaps even scratched out in the earth. In line with the widening range of materials coming into use in the home, farm and workshop, the materials used to make the backgammon set also evolved. Pottery replaced stone and bone, and sets began to be constructed in a more elaborate manner. Although most backgammon sets would have been homemade, the commercial production of sets in the last century brought cheap backgammon sets onto the market. Even those who didn't have the means to make their own sets could now afford to buy their own set. At the upper end of the market, classy backgammon sets made of precious metals to grace the tables of kings and aristocrats also made an appearance.

For the first five thousand years of the game's history, whatever materials backgammon sets were made of they shared in common the fact that they were in some way or another manufactured. The creation of backgammon software in the past fifteen years has taken the game into new dimensions. When someone invites you to play backgammon today, they may just as well be referring to online backgammon as the conventional offline variety of the game. The backgammon online developers have gone out of their way to present a 3-D backgammon set that looks almost like the ?real thing?. Going out and looking for a backgammon set to buy, or joining a club is no longer necessary to participate in the game. Backgammon has shown how well it adapts to the times.