Peter Langston's "Wander" game system from the 1970s has been recovered.
Why post here?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Langston
Peter Langston (born 1946) is a computer programmer who wrote and
distributed for free several games for Unix systems in the 1970s,
including the original version of Empire and the program "Oracle"
upon which the later net-wide [Internet] Oracle was modeled. He is
also an experienced jazz, rock, and folk musician.
In 1982, he was hired by the Computer Division of Lucasfilm to start
Lucasfilm Games. He hired the programming and design teams and wrote
the music for and contributed to the game design of Lucasfilm Games'
first two releases, Ballblazer and Rescue on Fractalus!. In fact,
for Ballblazer, Langston created an algorithmic composition system,
which allowed the game to improvise music (from an initial set of
musical snippets contributed by famous musicians) based on what is
happening in the game. Langston later left Lucasfilm Games for
Bellcore (now Telcordia Technologies). Langston retired in 1991 and
is now consulting and running adult music camps.
Anyway, the Wander is a tool to create interactive adventures but
predates Adventure (Colassal Cave), which itself predates Zork. The code
was found a few months ago, but a recent post in one of the interactive fiction newsgroups alerted me to it.
https://ahopeful.wordpress.com/2015/04/22/wander-1974-a-lost-mainframe-game-is-found/
I got the source from github and found it compiled and ran easily on
Linux. Apparently Langston did the port to modern C code himself.
https://github.com/shmup/wander
That includes four "games" built with the system. At least one of those ("tut") is more of demo of an alternative use for the system than a
game.
Anyway, if there are other humans left here, the very tangential
connection to Orrie is interesting. I've been looking through some
other Langston source and found his original oracle.c, it's less
exciting than Wander, but I can post it if people are interested.
Elijah
------
/*
* ORACLE -- ho ho Copyright (c) P. S. Langston - NYC NY 1978
* Compile: cc -O -q oracle.c -lS; mv a.out oracle; chmod 755 oracle
*/
char *whatsccs "@(#)oracle.c 1.7 last mod 6/13/80 -- (c) psl 1978";
Eli the Bearded <*@eli.users.panix.com> Wrote in message:...
Peter Langston's "Wander" game system from the 1970s has been recovered. Why post here?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Langston
Peter Langston (born 1946) is a computer programmer who wrote and
distributed for free several games for Unix systems in the 1970s,
including the original version of Empire and the program "Oracle"
upon which the later net-wide [Internet] Oracle was modeled.
/*
* ORACLE -- ho ho Copyright (c) P. S. Langston - NYC NY 1978
* Compile: cc -O -q oracle.c -lS; mv a.out oracle; chmod 755 oracle
*/
char *whatsccs "@(#)oracle.c 1.7 last mod 6/13/80 -- (c) psl 1978";
Great news, Eli- I'll have to check that out.
Peter Langston's "Wander" game system from the 1970s has been recovered.
Why post here?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Langston
Peter Langston (born 1946) is a computer programmer who wrote and
distributed for free several games for Unix systems in the 1970s,
including the original version of Empire and the program "Oracle"
upon which the later net-wide [Internet] Oracle was modeled. He is
also an experienced jazz, rock, and folk musician.
In 1982, he was hired by the Computer Division of Lucasfilm to start
Lucasfilm Games. He hired the programming and design teams and wrote
the music for and contributed to the game design of Lucasfilm Games'
first two releases, Ballblazer and Rescue on Fractalus!. In fact,
for Ballblazer, Langston created an algorithmic composition system,
which allowed the game to improvise music (from an initial set of
musical snippets contributed by famous musicians) based on what is
happening in the game. Langston later left Lucasfilm Games for
Bellcore (now Telcordia Technologies). Langston retired in 1991 and
is now consulting and running adult music camps.
Anyway, the Wander is a tool to create interactive adventures but
predates Adventure (Colassal Cave), which itself predates Zork. The code
was found a few months ago, but a recent post in one of the interactive fiction newsgroups alerted me to it.
https://ahopeful.wordpress.com/2015/04/22/wander-1974-a-lost-mainframe-game-is-found/
I got the source from github and found it compiled and ran easily on
Linux. Apparently Langston did the port to modern C code himself.
https://github.com/shmup/wander
That includes four "games" built with the system. At least one of those ("tut") is more of demo of an alternative use for the system than a
game.
Anyway, if there are other humans left here, the very tangential
connection to Orrie is interesting. I've been looking through some
other Langston source and found his original oracle.c, it's less
exciting than Wander, but I can post it if people are interested.
Elijah
------
/*
* ORACLE -- ho ho Copyright (c) P. S. Langston - NYC NY 1978
* Compile: cc -O -q oracle.c -lS; mv a.out oracle; chmod 755 oracle
*/
char *whatsccs "@(#)oracle.c 1.7 last mod 6/13/80 -- (c) psl 1978";
On Wednesday, October 28, 2015 at 7:46:50 AM UTC+11, Eli the Bearded wrote:^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Damn. I idly pop in and find two of the old reprobates still musing interestingly.
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