5 ms·

Wander (1974) – a lost mainframe game is found

55 points by wodow 11y ago

wodow 11y ago
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text_adventure http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text_adventure implies Adventure was first in "around" 1975, but this blog post says WANDER was 1974.
- moron4hire 11y ago
  Oregon Trail was first a sort of text adventure when it was put together in 1971. You didn't navigate rooms, though, so it wasn't exactly the same thing.
- joncameron 11y ago
  Wikipedia is notorious in the video game history community for its lack of accuracy and vague primary sources.
  - joshuapants 11y ago
    I think Wikipedia is notorious for that in general, along with constant subtle bias (of whoever won the pissing contest in the discussion page) in just about every article.
  - _delirium 11y ago
    In this case, Wikipedia's citation leads (via an intermediate hop) to an academic article that dates Adventure to 1975-76, and argues that a date of 1972, which some other sources had previously mentioned, is incorrect: http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/001/2/000009/000009.html http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/001/2/000009/000009...
    - ChuckMcM 11y ago
      Last I checked Don Woods was at Google so someone there could just ask him.
- yarrel 11y ago
  It's a game authoring environment. The example game is from 1977, so earlier games may or may not have been in Adventure style.
themartorana 11y ago
> Sure enough, after a little tweaking Just a reminder, the ESA would like to make this a crime. Edit: the source was retrieved from the original author. I stand down.
diiq 11y ago
This game is not only an early text adventure -- it is early interactive fan fiction. See Keith Laumer's Jame Retief stories: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jame_Retief http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jame_Retief The CDT, Mr. Magnan -- the whole scenario is straight from Laumer's work. Fan fiction inspires all great things :)
mratzloff 11y ago
This is great! I look forward to seeing the original (and modified) source code released. I love old text adventure games. If you want to try your hand at another obscure, early text adventure, there's a version of Warp (early 1980s) hosted here: http://empire.openmpe.com/empire/other_games.html http://empire.openmpe.com/empire/other_games.html (You have to access it through telnet.) It's a huge game with a very advanced parser, but it only runs on the HP e3000 and the source code has never been released. This is another one I'd like to eventually see the source code to, but I tried contacting one of the authors and got no reply.
DougMerritt 11y ago
I have a copy of this (Peter Langston's Wander C source code) from a 1980 distribution. I don't think it was ever "lost", it just became gradually more obscure over time, as most things do. Edit: Looking closer, I see that Langston's 1980 distribution also included Empire (PDP11 object files, not source! -- infamously), "Fast Food" (with C source), and "Star_Drek" -- object files again)

55 points by wodow 11y ago

wodow 11y ago

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text_adventure http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text_adventure implies Adventure was first in "around" 1975, but this blog post says WANDER was 1974.

moron4hire 11y ago
Oregon Trail was first a sort of text adventure when it was put together in 1971. You didn't navigate rooms, though, so it wasn't exactly the same thing.
joncameron 11y ago
Wikipedia is notorious in the video game history community for its lack of accuracy and vague primary sources.
- joshuapants 11y ago
  I think Wikipedia is notorious for that in general, along with constant subtle bias (of whoever won the pissing contest in the discussion page) in just about every article.
- _delirium 11y ago
  In this case, Wikipedia's citation leads (via an intermediate hop) to an academic article that dates Adventure to 1975-76, and argues that a date of 1972, which some other sources had previously mentioned, is incorrect: http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/001/2/000009/000009.html http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/001/2/000009/000009...
  - ChuckMcM 11y ago
    Last I checked Don Woods was at Google so someone there could just ask him.
yarrel 11y ago
It's a game authoring environment. The example game is from 1977, so earlier games may or may not have been in Adventure style.

themartorana 11y ago

> Sure enough, after a little tweaking Just a reminder, the ESA would like to make this a crime. Edit: the source was retrieved from the original author. I stand down.

diiq 11y ago

This game is not only an early text adventure -- it is early interactive fan fiction. See Keith Laumer's Jame Retief stories: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jame_Retief http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jame_Retief The CDT, Mr. Magnan -- the whole scenario is straight from Laumer's work. Fan fiction inspires all great things :)

mratzloff 11y ago

This is great! I look forward to seeing the original (and modified) source code released. I love old text adventure games. If you want to try your hand at another obscure, early text adventure, there's a version of Warp (early 1980s) hosted here: http://empire.openmpe.com/empire/other_games.html http://empire.openmpe.com/empire/other_games.html (You have to access it through telnet.) It's a huge game with a very advanced parser, but it only runs on the HP e3000 and the source code has never been released. This is another one I'd like to eventually see the source code to, but I tried contacting one of the authors and got no reply.

DougMerritt 11y ago

I have a copy of this (Peter Langston's Wander C source code) from a 1980 distribution. I don't think it was ever "lost", it just became gradually more obscure over time, as most things do. Edit: Looking closer, I see that Langston's 1980 distribution also included Empire (PDP11 object files, not source! -- infamously), "Fast Food" (with C source), and "Star_Drek" -- object files again)