Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Path: gmd.de!ira.uka.de!yale.edu!yale!gumby!destroyer!cs.ubc.ca!newsserver.sfu.ca!sfu.ca!neilg
From: neilg@fraser.sfu.ca (Neil K. Guy)
Subject: Re: Is there a "classic"?
Message-ID: <neilg.726966996@sfu.ca>
Sender: news@sfu.ca
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada
References: <1ivmvaINNse3@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> <1j25vhINNqg1@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu>
Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1993 23:16:36 GMT
Lines: 33

ptd2@po.CWRU.Edu (Palmer T. Davis) writes:

>You *can*, however, pick up a copy of a version of the original ZORK game
>from the 1970's that later became (with much extra stuff added) Infocom's
>first three products: ZORK I, ZORK II, and ZORK III.  The package is called
>"cdungeon" and is available via anonymous FTP wherever the comp.sources.games
>archives are kept (wuarchive.wustl.edu and ftp.uu.net being two such sites
>that immediately come to mind).  I forget which volume cdungeon is in; dig
>around and you'll find it.  I think it's in the middle teens or so.

 Macintosh users may be interested that someone (I think his name is
Anthony Ard or something like that) has ported both the original
mainframe Adventure and the original mainframe Zork (aka: Dungeon) to
the Mac. So instead of lines of impenetrable Fortran or MDL code you
can actually play the original games in a Macintosh window, with your
own choice of fonts, etc. Incidentally, these Mac ports were *not*
written in TADS - they're proper ports written in, I think, Think C.

>Hmm.  Perhaps cdungeon should find its way to the ftp.gmd.de archive?

 These Mac versions are available on the ftp.gmd.de archive site, in
the /if-archive/games-mac directory.

> [..].  Both games are classics, and served 
>as the point of departure for most everything since, but you should look 
>into something more recent to get a better feel for what the genre is 
>about.

 Gotta agree on that one. I must admit that I've never got very far on
the original Adventure, simply because the two word parser is so #($&#
frustrating. Just ain't got the patience for that type of thing...

 - Neil K. (n_k_guy@sfu.ca)
