Sip from the Firehose

Interesting post on Slashdot pointing to a rec.arts.int-fiction newsgroup post about the 30th anniversary of Will Crowther’s original Adventure game.  “Somewhere Nearby is Colossal Cave”…  I remember playing the original Fortran Adventure game on a PDP-10 in the mid-1970s.  Later on I would play Adventure games, by Scott Adams from Adventure International, on my Apple II computer.

You’ll find the newsgroup post at http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.int-fiction/browse_thread/thread/607acaf1a279d4dd/bd53b672a185d177#bd53b672a185d177

The Fortran source code can be found at http://jerz.setonhill.edu/if/crowther/

The Colossal Cave Adventure article is found at http://jerz.setonhill.edu/if/canon/Adventure.htm

You can play the original game online at http://jerz.setonhill.edu/if/gallery/adventure/index.html

The Rick Adams’ Colossal Cave Adventure home page is found at http://www.rickadams.org/adventure/

A history of the Adventure game can be found at http://www.rickadams.org/adventure/a_history.html

Hints and maps for the Colossal Cave Adventure are available at http://www.rickadams.org/adventure/d_hints/index.html

If you are interested is more readings about Software History, take a look at Researching the History of Software: Mining Internet Resources in the “Old World,” “New World,” and the “Wild West”

Donald Knuth took the original Fortran program and recast it in the CWEB idiom.  You’ll find the document at http://www.literateprogramming.com/adventure.pdf.

Programming IS an adventure.  Enjoy it to the fullest.  I have enjoyed the journey for the past 38 years and continue to have fun today.

Share This | Email this page to a friend