sklein@cdp.UUCP (07/22/89)
You might try looking for Collosal Cave, a name that Adventure sometimes
goes by. Adventure is still my favorite "adventure-type" game.
(How many software authors have the distinction of giving a name to an
entire class of software? And in the 'where are they now' department,
what ever happened to the authors of Adventure? [I think their names
are Woods and Crowthers])
-shabtai klein
UUCP: uunet!pyramid!cdp!sklein | BitNet: cdp!sklein%labrea@stanford
Internet: cdp!sklein@arisia.xerox.com | Phone: (301) 270-2250
"If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not
bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man."
-- Mark Twain awd@dbase.UUCP (Alastair Dallas) (07/25/89)
I'd like to talk about the original Adventure--we ought to re-code it for the Mac as a nostalgia trip, I think. I bet I could do a lot of it from memory. I read once that the game was originally developed by spelunkers at Bolt, Beranek and Newman (which I thought was Boston-area) and that these fellows actually spent weekends exploring the real Collossal Cave. Sorry for having this discussion in comp.sys.mac, but what the heck--there's every kind of subject in this newsgroup already, anyway :-) /alastair/
dplatt@coherent.com (Dave Platt) (07/25/89)
In article <172@dbase.UUCP> awd@dbase.UUCP (Alastair Dallas) writes: > > I'd like to talk about the original Adventure--we ought to re-code it for > the Mac as a nostalgia trip, I think. I bet I could do a lot of it from > memory. I read once that the game was originally developed by spelunkers > at Bolt, Beranek and Newman (which I thought was Boston-area) and that > these fellows actually spent weekends exploring the real Collossal Cave. Well, I have a 550-point version of the game... it's a superset of the Willie Crowther / Don Woods version that I hacked up back in '78 or so. It's written in an interpretive language... sort of like a structured assembler... which is optimized for doing that sort of thing. I kept the structure of the cave itself from the Don Woods FORTRAN version, but discarded all of the code and started afresh. The source code for the cave is run through a munger, which creates an encoded binary file; this file is then read and interpreted by a small application. I've been thinking of porting it to the Mac, but there's a hitch... it was developed on systems that provide support for a keyed (B-tree) file structure, and uses this feature to manage its data. I've been too lazy to write my own B-tree package for the Mac, and too cheap to buy one. Now that System 7.0 has been pre-announced, and official support for the previously-concealed HFS B-Tree manager is in the wings, maybe it's time to take a shot at it. I suppose there's some chance that it would even run under System 4.2 and 6.0.whatever, since the B-Tree Manager has apparently been part of the system for quite some time. I know that somebody ported the 550-point version to a CP-M micro... so getting it onto the Mac shouldn't be all that difficult. -- Dave Platt FIDONET: Dave Platt on 1:204/444 VOICE: (415) 493-8805 UUCP: ...!{ames,sun,uunet}!coherent!dplatt DOMAIN: dplatt@coherent.com INTERNET: coherent!dplatt@ames.arpa, ...@uunet.uu.net USNAIL: Coherent Thought Inc. 3350 West Bayshore #205 Palo Alto CA 94303
sdh@wind.bellcore.com (Stephen D Hawley) (07/26/89)
In article <29101@coherent.com> dplatt@coherent.com (Dave Platt) writes: >I've been thinking of porting it to the Mac, but there's a hitch... it >was developed on systems that provide support for a keyed (B-tree) file >structure, and uses this feature to manage its data. I've been too >lazy to write my own B-tree package for the Mac, and too cheap to buy one. This shouldn't be imperative. There were 2 versions of it ported to the apple ][. The first version used an IMMENSE text file for the data and took FOREVER to play because of the slow disk access for the file and because it was written in applesoft (ack!). The later version was in 6502 assembly, did no disk access and ran faster than the UNIX version on a VAX 780 (at 9600 baud). Surely, a port could done in the spirit of the latter. Steve Hawley sdh@flash.bellcore.com "Up is where you hang your hat." --Jim Blandy, computer scientist
awd@dbase.UUCP (Alastair Dallas) (07/27/89)
In article <29101@coherent.com>, dplatt@coherent.com (Dave Platt) writes: > > I know that somebody ported the 550-point version to a CP-M micro... so > getting it onto the Mac shouldn't be all that difficult. > -- The version I am familiar with is that ported by Gordon Letwin (architect of OS/2) for Heath (CP/M-class) micros. I believe he ported the original FORTRAN, in fact. Your version sounds ready-made for a Mac port. I, for one, would like it, if only to show my son--Adventure is one of the all-time "neat ideas" for what you can do with a computer. /alastair/
isle@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Ken Hancock) (07/27/89)
In article <175@dbase.UUCP> awd@dbase.UUCP (Alastair Dallas) writes: >Your version sounds ready-made for a Mac port. I, for one, would like it, >if only to show my son--Adventure is one of the all-time "neat ideas" for >what you can do with a computer. > >/alastair/ I'm quite sure it's already around in public domain form. Try BCS/BMUG/ WAP or your local users group. Ken Ken Hancock '90 | BITNET/UUCP/ Personal Computing Ctr Consultant | INTERNET: isle@eleazar.dartmouth.edu -----------------------------------+---------------------------------------- DISCLAIMER? I don't get paid enough to worry about disclaimers.
landman%hanami@Sun.COM (Howard A. Landman x61391) (08/03/89)
In article <141200062@cdp> sklein@cdp.UUCP writes: > And in the 'where are they now' department, > what ever happened to the authors of Adventure? [I think their names > are Woods and Crowthers]) Don Woods used to be at Stanford. I don't know where he is now. Will Crowther used to be at Xerox PARC, and is rumored to now be at BBN. Will was an avid climber and caver, which might have affected the game a little bit. :-) Howard A. Landman landman@sun.com
landman%hanami@Sun.COM (Howard A. Landman x61391) (08/17/89)
In article <119236@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> I wrote: >Don Woods used to be at Stanford. I don't know where he is now. Boy am I embarrassed. Someone pointed out that he works for Sun, just across the street from me! His machine is named "colossal". Howard A. Landman landman@sun.com