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First Graphics Game Written On/For a 16-Bit Home PC

Posted by Soulskill on from the it's-an-e-antique dept.

The GPI writes with a story about Scott's Space Wars, a piece of gaming history: "This game was written by the famous game author Scott Adams, who founded Adventure International, the first multimillion dollar PC game company. It was founded over 30 years ago and developed for early 8-bit home PCs, i.e. TRS-80, Apple II, Atari. Scott's Space Wars is the first graphics game that was ever written at home, for a 16-bit home computer. The original source code is available as photos of the original 1975 hand-written manuscript. The last purchaser of the manuscript paid $197,500 in 2005. A brief video shows how the game was played."

5 of 159 comments (clear)

  1. you call those graphics? by ZosX · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I mean at least space wars at least had real graphics and not a bunch of ASCII characters. I guess this qualifies for some minor footnote in history, somewhere, somehow, but I'm really at a loss as to where. While we are at it do we know who A) wrote the first 8-bit PC game? B) Wrote the first 32-bit PC game? and C) Wrote the first 64-bit PC game? Ok...now how about the first C64 game? What about the first PC game? What about the first Apple II game? I could probably think of a million "firsts."

    Any takers? :P

    --
    zosxavius photography
  2. old != classic by Junior+J.+Junior+III · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Just because a game is old, doesn't mean it's a classic. A classic is a game which stands as a pinnacle representative of its type, an archetypal game that defined or created a genre, or a game so supremely crafted and so well-loved, that its appeal transcends its era.

    --
    You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
  3. And this is meaningful, why? by Count_Froggy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So what if this was written on a 16-bit hardware computer. I know of graphic games written in the Apple ][ Sweet-16 interpreter (a 16-bit machine in software installed on all Apple ][ machines) long before this. And, this machine was a one-of-a-kind creation that had no meaningful volume, even by the standards of the time. Lastly, it isn't graphical if it used TEXT CHARACTERS to represent the game elements. There were other games written on PDP-11 and LSI-11 machines (also true 16-bit hardware) that predate this.

    --
    If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?
  4. Should add "on record" to that claim by SilverJets · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Its the first graphics game written on/for a 16-bit home pc on record. There's always the possibility that someone wrote one before Scott Adams and didn't "publish" their work.

  5. Re:So by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And if it were really a graphics game, it would have made absolutely no difference: he could have made it look any way he wanted.

    This is the third time in this topic I am trying to make this point: THIS IS NOT A "GRAPHICS" GAME! It is a text-mode game, set in the 16x32 low-resolution text mode. There is really a huge difference between text and graphics modes!

    I am all for giving credit where it is due, but this game gets no credit for being "graphics". It was not. The methodology was completely different, and actual graphics games were much more difficult to do.