Adventure, Dungeon and Truly Old Games

Mize

Mize

3dfx Fan
Legend
Not sure what got me thinking about it, but somehow I was pondering my earliest days of computer gaming from the mid to late seventies.

My friend's Dad was at Caltech and had a portable terminal, complete with thermal printer and cradle-type modem for those old phones.

We'd get to use it on weekends and spend entire days playing ADVENT or Dungeon (later called Zork) text-based adventure games. I still remember countless hours mapping those games...dropping items in mazes so each location could be identified and mapped.

Ah those were the days! :)

So who else played these games while they were still running on PDP-10s? (Before the CP/M, Apple, TRS-80 ports)?

Yes. I am old.
 
I've still got a copy of The Hobbit for my ZX Spectrum along with a whole stack of old games.

But I remember logging in on the 300 baud modem to a BB somewhere in Europe to play Moria! I have since downloaded it to play on my PC at work when I'm waiting for downloads to finish or for code to compile!!
 
Mize said:
There were no options at the time!
Click to expand...

Rogue_Unix_Screenshot_CAR.PNG


u could always use ascii graphics, see any zx81 game (with its massive 1kb memory :LOL: )
 
zed said:
Rogue_Unix_Screenshot_CAR.PNG


u could always use ascii graphics, see any zx81 game (with its massive 1kb memory :LOL: )
Click to expand...

I played that! That's an old TRS-80 D&D type game. I remember it. It was about 5 years later though.
 
Would have been maybe 15-18 years ago. Me and a friend used to go to an after hours club at a school (not the one we went to), and we played a game on the old BBC machine there called "Old Cave" or something similar.

It was the first "sMMsO" (semi-Massive-Multiplayer-semi-Online) in that it wasnt a single player game. It was a "go north" "you have walked north into another room, there are two doors" kind of deal, where you explored a huge dungeon. Along the way you could pick up new armour/weapons, and "fight" trolls and dragons. But the other people logged in with you were also treasure hunting and every now and again you would end up in the same room as a "live" person. You could either fight, or walk away.

It was a text based game, but it (to me) was the grand-daddy of what we now play, WoW/DA etc. I may have only been 8-10 years old, but it had such atmosphere that I still remember it to this day.
 
Mize said:
I played that! That's an old TRS-80 D&D type game. I remember it. It was about 5 years later though.
Click to expand...
Blasphemy! TRS-80 indeed! It was a Unix game!

Anyway, FWIW, I've played through at least the following Infocom classics:
  • Zorks I, II, II (and a couple of recent additions as well)
  • Sorcerer
  • HHGTTG ("You have no tea")
  • The Leather Goddess of Phobos (lewd mode :) )
  • Bureaucracy
 
zed said:
Rogue_Unix_Screenshot_CAR.PNG


u could always use ascii graphics, see any zx81 game (with its massive 1kb memory :LOL: )
Click to expand...

actually not if your game has to be compatible with playing on a line printer :LOL:
most of the command line, stdin/stdout is still like this. when you're not using a full screen editor, game or app, it's made to be used with a WW2-style teletype.

note, I don't want to think how a 300 baud modem feels either.
in the 80's, the french State decided to give away millions of 1200 baud terminals to use on the phone network, for phone directory, ordering train tickets, sexual themed chat etc.
you can see lines of characters drawing, updating a whole screen with ascii characters takes quite a few seconds.
 
Blazkowicz said:
actually not if your game has to be compatible with playing on a line printer :LOL:
most of the command line, stdin/stdout is still like this. when you're not using a full screen editor, game or app, it's made to be used with a WW2-style teletype.
Click to expand...

Good point. We were playing on a thermal printer terminal (no screen).
 
Blazkowicz said:
note, I don't want to think how a 300 baud modem feels either.
Click to expand...

Heh, it was painfully slow. My first modem was an accoustic coupling (uses a phone handset connected to the modem "cradle") 300 baud modem.

Years later I was flying along on a speedy 2400 bps modem. You could still see text as it was displayed character by character. :p

God I sometimes miss the old local BBS sites. The community then was alot closer than anything I find online now-days. I guess part of that was being able to schedule GTGs (get togethers) to meet and party... And get laid. :D

"Nerds" back then weren't nearly as sexually starved as movies would have you believe.

Regards,
SB
 
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