The History of Computer Role-Playing Games...

[Anne & Lynn Wheeler]

It's wrong. ADVENT is 1972, or possibly a little bit later. But even
Advent isn't *really* what he's talking about: "Adventure" and "RPG"
are two distinct genres, although they certainly weren't even in the
mid 1980s--_The Book of Adventure Games_ and its sequel, from 1984 and
1985 respectively, contain not only what are now adventure games, but
also hints and maps for the Wizardry and Ultima games. He's basically
talking about games with randomized combat (although Zork would count
here), and character statistics, some sort of level or power
advancement system (oddly, Zork is still in the running: your hit
points, though hidden from you except in vague terms with DIAGNOSE, go
up, I think, as you score more points, and your chance of hitting the
thief certainly does).

ref:
http://www.rickadams.org/adventure/a_history.html
a posts on the subject:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005u.html#15 Fast action games on System/360+?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005u.html#25 Fast action games on System/360+?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005u.html#28 Fast action games on System/360+?

the following response has earlier time than original message since it
came from about 8 time-zones away

To: wheeler
Date: 04/05/78 09:36:19
good morning.
you were asking about a game called adventure.
if you still want a copy - i hav been promised a copy in few days time
so let me know if you still want it

... snip ...

From: wheeler
Date: 04/05/78 08:08:03
Would appreciate a copy of ADVENTURE. I will be going to TYMSHARE
on Friday morning and will try to get a copy from them. (TYMSHARE
is a commercial VM service. They also provide the machine, userids, etc.
for VMSHARE. When their management found out that ADVENTURE was being
offered, they wanted to take it off the system. They changed their
minds when they got a look at the books. ADVENTURE is one of TYMSHARE's
biggest money makers.) I don't know yet whether they will dump it
to tape for me. I'm also going to try and get a VMSHARE userid from them.
thxs- Lynn

... snip ...

Tymshare had got a PDP-10 copy from Stanford and then ported it to their
VM system ... past posts mentioning commercial vm-based timesharing companies
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#timeshare

I had gotten a copy of it in the late 70s and made it available internally
inside the company ... which resulted in some amount of uproar

recent posts for some bbn/imp trivia topic drift
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006e.html#9 terminals was: Caller ID "spoofing"
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006j.html#50 Arpa address
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006k.html#3 Arpa address
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006k.html#27 PDP-1
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006l.html#52 Mainframe Linux Mythbusting
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006m.html#42 Why Didn't The Cent Sign or the Exclamation Mark Print?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#44 more secure communication over the network

misc. other past posts mentioning adventure
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#169 Crowther (pre-Woods) "Colossal Cave"
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000d.html#33 Adventure Games (Was: Navy orders supercomputer)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001m.html#44 Call for folklore - was Re: So it's cyclical.
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002d.html#12 Mainframers: Take back the light (spotlight, that is)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003l.html#40 The real history of computer architecture: the short form
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004c.html#34 Playing games in mainframe
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004g.html#49 Adventure game (was:PL/? History (was Hercules))
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004g.html#57 Adventure game (was:PL/? History (was Hercules))
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004h.html#0 Adventure game (was:PL/? History (was Hercules))
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004h.html#1 Adventure game (was:PL/? History (was Hercules))
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004h.html#2 Adventure game (was:PL/? History (was Hercules))
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004h.html#4 Adventure game (was:PL/? History (was Hercules))
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004m.html#20 Whatever happened to IBM's VM PC software?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005c.html#45 History of performance counters
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005h.html#38 Systems Programming for 8 Year-olds
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005k.html#18 Question about Dungeon game on the PDP
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005l.html#16 Newsgroups (Was Another OS/390 to z/OS 1.4 migration
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006n.html#3 Not Your Dad's Mainframe: Little Iron

recent posts mentioning vmshare and getting process setup to be shipped
monthly tape of all vmshare (and then pcshare) files and making them
available internally
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006b.html#39 another blast from the past
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006d.html#2 IBM 610 workstation computer
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006h.html#9 It's official: "nuke" infected Windows PCs instead of fixing them
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006n.html#3 Not Your Dad's Mainframe: Little Iron
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006p.html#29 Greatest Software Ever Written?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006r.html#11 Was FORTRAN buggy?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006r.html#37 REAL memory column in SDSF
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006r.html#43 REAL memory column in SDSF
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006s.html#65 Paranoia..Paranoia..Am I on the right track?.. any help please?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006v.html#22 vmshare
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006v.html#30 vmshare
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006v.html#34 vmshare
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006v.html#38 vmshare
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006v.html#40 vmshare
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#25 To RISC or not to RISC
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#42 vmshare
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#48 vmshare
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006x.html#7 vmshare
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006x.html#8 vmshare

[Anne & Lynn Wheeler]

Post by Anne & Lynn Wheeler
http://www.rickadams.org/adventure/a_history.html

re:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006y.html#xx The History of Computer Role-Playing Games...

from above ... an early "SPAM" reference

In 1976, Don Woods was working at Stanford University's Stanford
Artificial Intelligence Lab, otherwise known by the acronym SAIL.

Woods found a copy of Crowther's woods picture rudimentary program
left on one of the SAIL computers by some unknown Johnny Appleseed, so
to speak.

He contacted Crowther by the simple expedient of sending email to
"***@sitename," where sitename was every computer then on the
Internet, only a mere handful of sites at the time. After
corresponding with Crowther and getting his blessings, Woods greatly
expanded the program.

... snip ...

but as noted, there was only a *mere handful* of sites on the arpanet
at the time. this somewhat corresponds to past references about BBN
being able to have regularly scheduled weekly maint, taking down all
the arpanet nodes at the same time ... recent references

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006k.html#10 Arpa address
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006x.html#8 vmshare

... which is possible when you have a relatively small, homogeneous
environment.

from old RFC638:

PLEASE REMEMBER THAT TUESDAY MORNINGS FROM 7am TO 9am ARE RESERVED
FOR NETWORK SOFTWARE MAINTENANCE.

... snip ...

the referenced RFC also gives monthly hardware maintenance schedule
for the network nodes (again, something possible when you have a
small, homogeneous environment).

[Anne & Lynn Wheeler]

previous posts in this thread:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006y.html#18 The History of Computer Role-Playing Games
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006y.html#19 The History of Computer Role-Playing Games

old email mentioning ZORK

From: wheeler
Date: 03/31/80 19:57:00

re: ZORK; Barry Gold is not at MIT but at SHARE installation code RL
(i'll have to look it up sometime), sorry about the wild goose chase
around MIT. His statement on VMSHARE of 6/27/79, said he was going to
have 370 ZORK available shortly. I've contacted him via VMSHARE and he
has gotten caught up in a multitude of other VM activities. He is
working from the DEC user group's FORTRAN version but claims that he
had to get MIT approval to work on the source and would also require
MIT approval to allow other installations to work on it (while he is
busy with his other tasks). He isn't too hopeful since he has several
other communications with MIT group that have gone unanswered for a
long time and are still outstanding.

... snip ...

Melinda used to have source and executable on her home page ... re:
http://listserv.uark.edu/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind9707&L=ibmvm&D=0&T=0&P=9631

but it no longer seems to be there.