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Re:[OT] Peter Langston's "Wander" game

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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. 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";
> 

Great news, Eli- I'll have to check that out.

Manda. 
-- 

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[OT] Peter Langston's "Wander" game Eli the Bearded <*@eli.users.panix.com> - 2015-10-27 20:46 +0000
  Re:[OT] Peter Langston's "Wander" game Amanda Huggenkiss <phil@culmer.org.uk> - 2016-12-12 00:46 +0000
    Re: [OT] Peter Langston's "Wander" game Eli the Bearded <*@eli.users.panix.com> - 2016-12-13 00:00 +0000
  Re: [OT] Peter Langston's "Wander" game richardfitzpatrick60@gmail.com - 2017-01-27 17:20 -0800
    Re: [OT] Peter Langston's "Wander" game Eli the Bearded <*@eli.users.panix.com> - 2017-01-28 04:19 +0000

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