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Crowther's Original Adventure Source Code Found
drxenos writes "I don't know how many of you are fans of old-school text adventures (interactive fiction), but Will Crowther's original Fortran source code has been located in a backup of Don Woods's old student account. For fans like me, this is like finding the Holy Grail."
I once wrote a script to find and delete copies of this and the star trek game due to the limited disk space on our PDP-11/70. It had to compare file contents because the sneaky bastards would change the file names to something like TPSRPORT.DOC to hide them.
GIT OFFA MAH LAWN! /me waves a shotgun around menacingly
...
So maybe the inspiration for the "maze of twisty little passages, all alike" wasn't Mammoth Cave, it was the code itself.
Oh, no! You have walked into the slavering fangs of a lurking grue!
Um, could you repost that please? It seems your original post got corrupted somehow. All I see is gibberish where the code should be.
My blog
Who else would call FORTRAN a "text adventure"?
;-)
// Still wouldn't use it unless forced to at gunpoint
Well, calling it a "programming language" certainly qualifies as "fantasy"...
/ Props to HPF, though
Q: "What is your quest?"
A> "To Seek the holy grail!"
Q: "what is your favorite text base adventure game?"
A> "Colossal Cave Adventure... NO wait, blue!"
*Gets launched into the death pit*
tttttt
t t
t t
t R I P t
t t
t t
tttttttttttt
"Someone mind finishing the work for me?"
...
... IP! IP! IP!
Fine, fine.
For fans like me, this is like finding the Holy Grail.
Drxenos! Drxenos, King of the Nerds! Oh, don't grovel! If there's one thing I can't stand, it's people groveling!
[slightly later]
Behold! Drxenos, this is the Holy Grail of Computer Games. Look well, drxenos, for it is your sacred task to seek this Grail. That is your purpose, drxenos -- the Quest for the Holy Grail of Computer Games: Adventure. And it is written in FORTRAN.
Wait, FORTRAN? Lord, you're kidding right?
[significantly later]
He says they've already got one!
Yes, it's-a verry nice-a. It is-a coded in C.
[substantially later]
We are the Knights Who Say
Augh!!!! Stop it!
[much later]
What is the net speed of an unladen TCP/IP data packet using PPP over a 1200 baud modem?
What do you mean? With or without parity, 7 or 8 bits, with or without flow control?
What? I don't know all that! Auuuuuugh!!!
[slightly later but a little further that the previously-mentioned "slightly later"]
The Castle Stanford. Once we brave its maze of twisty little passages, all alike, our quest is at an end!
When I finally finished it, the screen cleared and an operator in the computer centre was typing to me and asking me to come over to the centre. I figured I'd been sprung for all the extra time I'd 'arranged', but instead they gave me printout and iducted me into the Order of Wizards!
A nerdy proud moment... (I wish I hadn't lost that printout in the intervening decades and moves.)
program smite_em
c-----
IMPLICIT NONE ! Catch typos and un-initialized variables.
integer IERR_smite
character*200 ch_name
c-----
write(6,1)
1 FORMAT(/,' This is one smiting program!',/,
& ' Enter name of smitee --> ',$)
read(*,fmt='(A)') ch_name
DO while(.TRUE.) ! Endless smiting loop.
call smite(ch_name, IERR_smite)
if(IERR_smite.GT.0) goto 20
End DO ! smite loop.
20 CONTINUE
write(*,*)' Done smiting.'
if(IERR_smite.LT.0) then
write(6,2) IERR_smite
2 FORMAT(' ***Possible smiting error, IERR_smite = ',I)
endif
STOP
END
c-----
c End of Main.
c-----
I've got a box of cards (two, actually. Two and half, really. You could never get all the cards back into the box). All I need is a card reader and a 360/65 with OS 360 and TSO and I'm set for life.
I've also got a programming card for an 029 and COBOL.
We were the sneaky bastards that used to put random comments and unused character strings into the code to thwart people like you. Then I graduated and became a people like you. And was constantly thwarted by people like me.
OS 360, RSX11D, RSX11M, VMS. RIP.
That was a great story the last time you told it, too.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?