Retrieved from https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/alt.folklore.computers/-tEpEAFtKvw/F8BX4505KGEJ on 2016-01-25. Email addresses have been mangled by Google Groups; I've repaired the ones that can be unambiguously deduced. Any instance of "...@" in this text should be considered suspect. This is part of a thread from alt.folklore.computers, between August 26 and September 10, 1991. Magnus Olsson (the compiler of OLSS0551 in 1992) reports that as of 1991-09-09, he had "just posted a Macintosh version of Dungeon [that is, Zork] to comp.binaries.mac. It's compiled from C sources I found on the net, apparently a faithful translation of the original Fortran code." Rich Alderson of Stanford reports that David Long's "Adventure" variant originally had 500 points and only "later" 501. This matches Russel Dalenberg's claim. I personally haven't seen any 500-point versions. =========================================================================== Path: gmdzi!unido!mcsun!uunet!stanford.edu!leland.Stanford.EDU!news From: alderson@Alderson.Stanford.EDU (Rich Alderson) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: What are FOO and FOOBARR?? Message-ID: <1991Sep1.210057.29404@leland.Stanford.EDU> Date: 1 Sep 91 21:00:57 GMT References: <RON.91Aug26145701@bert.cs.byu.edu> <LARRY.91Aug26204032@rock.psl.nmsu> <.683574983@andersen> Sender: ne...@leland.Stanford.EDU (Mr News) Reply-To: alderson@Alderson.Stanford.EDU (Rich Alderson) Distribution: alt.folklore.computers Organization: Stanford University Academic Information Resources Lines: 41 In-Reply-To: tsarver@andersen.uucp (Tom Sarver) In article <.683574983@andersen>, tsarver@andersen (Tom Sarver) writes: >WRONG!! WRONG!! WRONG!! >Foo does *not* derive from FUBAR. Foo was a magic word in the ancient game >'Adventure.' This game started such phrases as 'Magic Cookie' as well. >Ask an MIT grad who's about 50 right now. You'll see that a lot of Unix >slang originated with this game also. BZZZT! Wrong answer. The MIT use of FOO and BAR as meta-variables in computer science discussions is unrelated to the use of (misspelled) FOO in the Adventure game, which by the bye is NOT from MIT, but from Stanford--at least, the oldest version most people know about. The word FOO (as in "Foo! You are nothing but a charlatan!") is the same as "Phoo!" which is in turned shortened from "Phooey!" or "Pfui!" It is partially onomatopoeic, partially euphemistic. It is used to stand for "Fuck!" in the same way that "Darn!" stands for "Damn!" or "Heck!" stands for "Hell!" Given this use of FOO/PHOO, it is easy to see how FUBAR came to be reanalyzed as FOO+BAR, giving rise to the use of BAR separately from FOO. >However, if you look the _New_Hacker's_Dictionary_ you will see many sources, >none of which are authoritative. The best known document which makes full >use of the word is Kernighan and Ritchie's _The_C_Programming_Language_. Given Dennis Ritchie's MIT connections, this is hardly surprising. Was Kernighan also from MIT? >Any MIT'ers out there know about the 'Adventure' game? Of course there are. It inspired some MIT hackers to create Zork (aka MadAdventure). They even said so. It also inspired a programmer at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business named David Long to expand the Crowther and Woods version, adding dozens of rooms, changing or adding several puzzles, and pushing the point count from 350 to 500 (later 501). I'm not sure, but I think Willy Crowther was at CDC. I know that Don Woods was at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. =========================================================================== Path: gmdzi!unido!mcsun!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!mips!twg.com!nolan From: nolan@twg.com (Nolan Hinshaw) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Adventure (was Re: What are FOO and FOOBARR??) Message-ID: <9467@gollum.twg.com> Date: 3 Sep 91 19:09:56 GMT References: <LARRY.91Aug26204032@rock.psl.nmsu> <.683574983@andersen> <1991Aug30.213138.12947@newserve.cc.binghamton.edu> <1991Aug31.225840.17715@slate.mines.colorado.edu> Distribution: alt.folklore.computers Organization: The Wollongong Group, Palo Alto, CA Lines: 12 At home at the bottom of a large heap of memorabilia is a green printout binder containing a compiler listing of the VAX/VMS Fortran version of ADVENT which I ran off at the DECUS symposium in San Diego in the winter of 1977. Now and then I dust off the binder and reminisce (ACHOO!). I got a listing of the text data- base file, too! -- Nolan Hinshaw Internet: nolan@twg.com The Wollongong Group Dingalingnet: (415)962-7197 Piobairi Uillean, San Francisco Is mise mo drumadoir eile fein! =========================================================================== Path: gmdzi!unido!mcsun!uunet!cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!THEP.LU.SE!magnus From: magnus@THEP.LU.SE (Magnus Olsson) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Adventure (was Re: What are FOO and FOOBARR??) Message-ID: <9109091334.AA02345@thep.lu.se> Date: 9 Sep 91 13:34:13 GMT References: <1991Aug31.225840.17715@slate.mines.colorado.edu> Sender: dae...@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: Theoretical Physics, Lund University, Sweden Lines: 42 In article <1991Aug31.225840.17715@slate.mines.colorado.edu> jedelen@slate.mines.colorado.edu writes: > Speaking of Adventure, I seem to recall having source code for it. It's >been a few years, so I may be mistaken entirely here, but the source code >I'm thinking of was in FORTRAN and looked a lot like Adventure to me. >Does anybody know some details? Well, of course I don't know any details of _your_ sources :-) but the original Adventure sources _are_ in Fortran (quite ugly Fortran IV). There are several versions available on the net; I've downloaded one with FTP from the Usenet archives at uunet.uu.net (I don't remember if it was in comp.sources.misc or comp.sources.games, though). There's also a version in C available from uunet; strictly speaking, this is not the original game but a new one, written to be exactly like the old one... > Of course, as far as 'ancient' games go, I thought Adventure was pretty >weak compared to Dungeons. (Or is it 'Adventures' and 'Dungeon'? My >memory is pretty cloudy here. Of course, I only called them up as >'ADVENT' and 'DUNGEO', so that's probably somewhat understandable.) It's "Adventure" and "Dungeon" (the latter also known as "Zork"). It's not very strange that Adventure seems a bit primitive compared to more modern adventure games. What _is_ strange is that Dungeon still compares very favourably to many newer games - the parser is quite good, the vocabulary large, the cave huge, the text well written, the problems extremely clever and the world well thought out - in terms of "sense of wonder", I'd put it before all other text games I've ever seen. (All this IMHO, of course). [BTW, I just posted a Macintosh version of Dungeon to Comp.binaries.mac. It's compiled from C sources I found on the net, apparently a faithful translation of the original Fortran code. I haven't made any changes at all to it - the only difference seems to be that _any_ user can enter the GDT... According to the moderator, it should appear during the next weekend.] -- Magnus Olsson | \e+ /_ Dept. of Theoretical Physics | \ Z / q University of Lund, Sweden | >----< Internet: magnus@thep.lu.se | / \===== g Bitnet: THEPMO@SELDC52 | /e- \q =========================================================================== Path: gmdzi!unido!mcsun!uunet!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!usc!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!ai-lab!wheat-chex!tk From: tk@wheat-chex.ai.mit.edu (Tom Knight) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Adventure (was Re: What are FOO and FOOBARR??) Message-ID: <18018@life.ai.mit.edu> Date: 9 Sep 91 21:15:37 GMT References: <1991Aug31.225840.17715@slate.mines.colorado.edu> <9109091334.AA02345@thep.lu.se> Sender: ne...@ai.mit.edu Organization: MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Lines: 32 In article <9109091334.AA02345@thep.lu.se> magnus@THEP.LU.SE (Magnus Olsson) writes: >It's "Adventure" and "Dungeon" (the latter also known as "Zork"). It's Of course, it was really Zork, much later also known as Dungeon. >not very strange that Adventure seems a bit primitive compared to more >modern adventure games. What _is_ strange is that Dungeon still >compares very favourably to many newer games - the parser is quite >good, the vocabulary large, the cave huge, the text well written, the >problems extremely clever and the world well thought out - in terms of >"sense of wonder", I'd put it before all other text games I've ever >seen. (All this IMHO, of course). > >[BTW, I just posted a Macintosh version of Dungeon to >Comp.binaries.mac. It's compiled from C sources I found on the net, >apparently a faithful translation of the original Fortran code. I Of course, the "original" fortran code is a poor translation of the really original MDL aka Muddle code. >haven't made any changes at all to it - the only difference seems to >be that _any_ user can enter the GDT... According to the moderator, it >should appear during the next weekend.] > Zork was written for the the ITS operating system at MIT Project MAC, running on a Digital KA-10 processor in about 1973. It was written in an experimental Lisp-like language called MDL (really Muddle, but changed for political reasons). The writers subsequently founded Infocom and wrote several later text based games (Leather Goddess of Phobos, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, etc.). =========================================================================== Path: gmdzi!unido!mcsun!hp4nl!cwi.nl!dik From: dik@cwi.nl (Dik T. Winter) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Adventure (was Re: What are FOO and FOOBARR??) Message-ID: <4205@charon.cwi.nl> Date: 10 Sep 91 10:12:36 GMT References: <1991Aug31.225840.17715@slate.mines.colorado.edu> <9109091334.AA02345@thep.lu.se> <18018@life.ai.mit.edu> Sender: ne...@cwi.nl Organization: CWI, Amsterdam Lines: 20 In article <18018@life.ai.mit.edu> tk@wheat-chex.ai.mit.edu (Tom Knight) writes: > Of course, it was really Zork, much later also known as Dungeon. > > Of course, the "original" fortran code is a poor translation of the > really original MDL aka Muddle code. > > Zork was written for the the ITS operating system at MIT Project MAC, > running on a Digital KA-10 processor in about 1973. It was written in > an experimental Lisp-like language called MDL (really Muddle, but > changed for political reasons). The writers subsequently founded > Infocom and wrote several later text based games (Leather Goddess of > Phobos, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, etc.). For authorative information about Zork, see: P. David Lebling, Marc S. Blank, Timothy A. Anderson, "Zork: A Computerized Fantasy Simulation Game", in IEEE Computer, April 1979, pp 51-59 -- dik t. winter, cwi, amsterdam, nederland dik@cwi.nl ===========================================================================