3 ms·
Because this is approaching the web horizon, for those who don't know, Ken and Roberta Williams are pretty close to the SoCal version of Shigeru Miyamoto. They
by ethbr0 5y ago
Because this is approaching the web horizon, for those who don't know, Ken and Roberta Williams are pretty close to the SoCal version of Shigeru Miyamoto.
They founded Sierra On-Line in 1979, which published pretty stellar titles until its sale in 1996 (and subsequent mismanagement and outright corporate fraud by the acquirer).
Here are a list of the things they published, among which some were developed inhouse, among which some were developed by one or both of the Williams.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Sierra_Entertainment_video_games https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Sierra_Entertainment...
PS: And on a personal note, I can't imagine my teenage years without Sierra. From King's Quest to Dynamix to Valve's Half-Life to Relic's Homeworld to Gearbox's initial Half-Life console ports, they survived far longer in an industry where so many don't... while putting out amazing stuff over decades.
Or to put it another way, when they first started writing and publishing games, there was no Internet (in the modern sense) and Intel had just released the 10 MHz 8086 built on a 3000 nm (3 µm) node.
By the time they left the company, the web and JavaScript existed, and Intel had just released the Klamath 300 MHz Pentium II on a 350 nm node.
Crazy times.
- slowmovintarget 5y agoHacking King's Quest on my middle school's Apple IIe was one of the ways I learned to code.
- tomc1985 5y agoDid they really have much of a role to play for Half-Life or Homeworld? By that point they were just a publisher.
- ethbr0 5y agoSupposedly they chose to publish Half-Life because they regretted turning down the chance to buy id, and thought Valve seemed like a good company. So I think they deserve some credit for recognizing talent.
- VBprogrammer 5y agoThey also had a couple of really cool Nordhavn motor yachts which Ken has blogged about extensively, including crossing the Atlantic in their first one.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- mgdlbp 5y agoThe Internet Archive has many historic games (and some of its other vintage software) available to run in various emulators in-browser. For example, a 1987 release of King's Quest in (F1 for help; note: sound!): https://archive.org/details/msdos_Kings_Quest_I_-_Quest_for_the_Crown_1987 https://archive.org/details/msdos_Kings_Quest_I_-_Quest_for_... Discussion of how it's done with DOSBox compiled to Wasm: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10977424 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10977424
- fknorangesite 5y agoPlenty are on GOG, too.