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The Murky Origins of Zork's Name

Posted by Soulskill on from the murky-enough-for-a-grue dept.

mjn writes "Computational media researcher Nick Montfort traces the murky origins of Zork's name. It's well known that the word was used in MIT hacker jargon around that time, but how did it get there? Candidates are the term 'zorch' from late 1950s DIY electronics slang, the use of the term as a placeholder in some early 1970s textbooks, the typo a QWERTY user would get if he typed 'work' on an AZERTY keyboard, and several uses in obscure sci-fi. No solid answers so far, though, as there are problems with many of the possible explanations that would have made MIT hackers unlikely to have run across them at the right time."

7 of 70 comments (clear)

  1. Trivia by Ethanol-fueled · · Score: 2, Interesting
    TFA:

    It's also at least arguable that "zork" sounds less destructive than "zorch,"

    "Zorch" sounds exactly like "Zork" when you pronounce the "-ch" as a "k" like the word chemistry. Could've been wordplay that became viral, like when people use "guise" instead of "guys".

    The general definition of "zorch" is to destroy or render unusuable, esp with electrical current of improper or fatal voltage or current.

    Calvin and Hobbes' Spaceman Spiff carries a futuristic sidearm, which was eventually named Death Ray Blaster, or Death Ray Zorcher.

  2. Re:What about Kroz? by Osty · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Crappy ASCII art based shareware game... Kingdom of Kroz... "borrowed" it's name from Zork.

    Crappy or not, Kroz ultimately brought us Doom, Quake, Duke Nukem, etc. Scott Miller founded Apogee with the release of Kingdom of Kroz, and the rest is history.

  3. Hello Sailor by amiga3D · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I swear that game made me buy a commodore 64 just to play it. I saw it on a friends C64 and bought one a week later with a 1541 disk drive and the games Zork and F15 Strike Eagle. I lost more sleep wandering around the rooms in that house. I doubt the name has any real meaning, just more of the same bizarreness of the game.

  4. Obligatory by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Obligatory nerdcore song. MC Frontalot- It is Pitch Dark

  5. Re:Tjaden4815 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Idiot --> YOU

  6. Re:I didn't say 'zork'. by GaryOlson · · Score: 3, Interesting

    He can't. He is caught is a twisty little maze of bushes all alike. And you smell suspiciously like a grue....

    --
    Every mans' island needs an ocean; choose your ocean carefully.
  7. Twisty Little Passages by Nick Montfort by longhairedgnome · · Score: 2, Interesting

    An entire chapter of Twisty Little Passages is devoted to Zork. Twisty Little passages

    --
    GENERATION O98346: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig and remove a random number from the generation. T