Source code for seminal adventure game Zork on dead mainframe exhumed onto GitHub
- Reference: 1588921088
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/05/08/zork_source_code_released/
- Source link:
While classic adventure games (aka interactive fiction) are well represented in the Internet Archive - there’s plenty of playable Zork versions [2]here - this new trove is source code that’s been retrieved from the [3]Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Tapes of Tech Square (ToTS) collection at the MIT Libraries Department of Distinctive Collections (DDC).
If you access the repo and its README you’re told the source was written “in the MDL programming language written on a PDP-10 timeshare computer running the ITS operating system”.
Dungeon-exploration adventure games existed before Zork, but the game’s four developers advanced the genre beyond simple noun-plus-verb commands to allow reasonably complex statements involving multiple in-game-objects. That made it more playable, which generated interest and eventually saw the code make it onto ARPANET where it found an appreciative audience.
Author of '80s classic The Hobbit didn't know game was a hit [4]READ MORE
The game’s developers eventually created Infocom, a software company that did not set out to champion text adventures but became synonymous with them as it spawned numerous Zork clones sequels and spin-offs. Zork therefore acquired something of a cultural footprint. Classic lines from the game such as “It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a Grue” were geek identifiers years before “The cake is a lie” took on the same role.
The code in the repo comes from 1977, before the game was commercialised but at a time it was informally distributed.
If you get it running, let us know how you go – with the reproduction of the PDP-10 environment and the game! ®
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[1] https://github.com/historicalsource/zork-1977-source
[2] https://archive.org/details/software?and%5B%5D=Zork&sin=
[3] https://archivesspace.mit.edu/repositories/2/resources/1265
[4] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/18/hobbit_author_veronika_megler_reminisces/
[5] https://go.theregister.co.uk/tl/1936/-8552/how-to-accelerate-brilliant-digital-experiences-with-low-code?td=wptl1936
Re: Thanks for the pointer, Simon.
There's an ITS environment on, I think, GitHub somewhere. It sits on top of a simulator obviously, and there is a choice of several. I had a brief try at building it on a recent Ubuntu, as I wanted to run MACLISP, but failed. I didn't spend enough time to understand why: turns out I didn't want to remind myself how grotty pre-Common-Lisp Lisps were that much...
I remember wating a lot of my time on this on a rather elderly ICL (a 2960 if I remember correctly) , machine running EMAS (Edinburgh Multi Access System) - oh how overjoyed we were to get BSD on a Vax - ported by a bored PhD student.
We had UNIX/32V running on a VAX at Berkeley in June of '79 ... and the 2BSD mods that became 3BSD soon after that. If you requested a copy of BSD for your VAX after 1979 there would have been no need for porting it ... and prior to that, whatever was ported to the VAX at Edinburgh wouldn't have been BSD.
I as not clear. Zork was ported, not BSD! c/o a US friend apparently)
Edinburgh was my alma mater too. What was the programming language? I vaguely remember parallelism in it, and the instruction "***".
(I graduated in Physics exactly 40 years ago.)
I believe MDL (model development language?) I am given to understand he ported the compiler. I wa just a snotty undergrad at the time.
I remember when the 2960 was new. I worked on the test operating system.
The best thing to come out of Edinburgh was POP-2 - that was/is a really good language, IMHO.
All Hail the Grue in its natural habitat!
You could say "Kick the grue." at any point. It didn't achieve anything, but it worked, and it proved that the grue was always near, just waiting for the dark.
Xyzzy (or PLUGH)
You are in a maze of twisty little passages...
Re: Xyzzy (or PLUGH)
I remember those passages well. Got stuck down there for ages wandering around in the dark. xyzzy was the code for something, was it a magic rod or lamp or something that teleported you elsewhere... it was a very long time ago.
Re: Xyzzy (or PLUGH)
Not to mention the "Hello Sailor" one in one of the Zork trilogy ones.
I'm still in awe of FCD #3
MDL
Peeked at some of the files. This MDL language looks interesting. A lot like a variant of LISP, but with <> used instead of () in some places. Wikipedia has a description [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDL_(programming_language) ] but no link to any implementation. So anyone porting Zork would have to start making one...
Schmoo?
If I'm remembering the name right, our PDP-11/20 in high school had a simpler text game called "Schmoo", which involved slinging mud at the schmoo creature (who liked mud being slung at it) by guessing direction and distance. Then you make YOU happy (so it thought) it would then sling mud back at you. Was probably a couple other basic games, can't remember what they were anymore.
Oh yes, and [1]here was our old machine .
[1] https://flic.kr/p/TY9jk3
Thanks for the pointer, Simon.
I have several old copies of Zork, but most are PDP-11 / BSD ports from the late '70s to early '80s ... I think the earliest was for 2BSD, which would have been 1979. I might have copies from earlier, for other hardware and OSes, but I haven't fully cataloged the tapes I have managed to archive yet. Rainy day project that hopefully will wind up at TUHS, once I figure out what I can legally make available.
I have a copy of ADVENT that claims to be from 1976 that runs on TOPS-10 ... will ask MIT for an unmolested copy of ZORK and see if I can't get it to run on the hardware and OS it was intended to run on ... I've been meaning to break out the ITS tapes anyway, a friend wants to fiddle about with SHRDLU in its original home for some reason ... He even wants to borrow a Model 33 ASR & acoustic modem to go full retro. I suspect he's writing his life story, I know he worked with that kit at UNI ...
You are in an open field west of a big white house with a boarded front door.
There is a small mailbox here.