🚀 go-pugleaf

alde...@netcom2.netcom.com (Richard M. Alderson III) writes:

> In article <23yadiw...@dragon.advancedsw.com> James Powell
> <ja...@advancedsw.com> writes:
> 
> >alde...@netcom12.netcom.com (Richard M. Alderson III) writes:
> 
> >> Somewhere, I still have a 2-page XEROX-reduced copy of a copy of a copy of a
> >> .... for who knows how many iterations--given to me when I first went to
> >> work for the UChicago Comp Center in 1977.
> 
> >Funny, I went to work at one of the the UChicago computing centers in
> >1987, and Adventure (and TOPS-10) still had a strong presence there.
> 
> I worked for the Comp Center (which was still at the site in the basement of
> the physics building(s) at 57th & Ellis when I left in 1984); did you work for
> them, or for the Graduate School of Business?  I don't remember whether GSB had
> one -20 or two; we had two (Chip and Dale--though Chip was the newer one) at
> the Comp Center.

I worked for the GSB computing services dept. in the Walker Museum
building from '87 to '90.  I think the GSB only had one -20,
'gsbdec'.  I don't see it on the internet now, but I'm not sure that I
ever did.

> Dave Long was an interesting guy--worked for GSB as a computer operator, and
> did the Adventure expansion in his spare time.  He left Chicago for a time to
> work in the Saudi oil fields, but came back a few months before I left.  He
> wouldn't allow anyone at Chicago to see the source code, though he gave me a
> copy of the parser subroutine since I was a linguist.

<smile> He was the director of the GSB computing services dept. when I
was hired.  The last I heard he had moved on, I don't know where.  He
kept a factory-fresh BMW motorcycle in his office!  When I knew him,
he was still working on the adventure code in his spare time,
translating it to 'C' so that he could compile it on the VAX/VMS
systems they were migrating to.

> (When I got to Stanford, I found the Long 550 point version of Adventure on the
> LOTS systems.  Not bad considering that Chicago wasn't on the ARPANET at the
> time--or at least, the -20s weren't.)

Not bad.  I was beginning to despair that I'd be able to find a copy,
but the Fortran source is available.  Now I get to find out how well
'f2c' works.

> At the first LOTS Town Meeting after I arrived, a student came up to me and
> introduced himself as "P1.PALANTIR"--a Comp Center username on Dale, the
> academic system.  It turns out he graduated from the UofC School of Edudation's
> Laboratory School (a K--12 facility)--and I had kicked him off the system once
> for playing Adventure during "off" hours.  We've been friends ever since...
> (Hey, Ed!  You reading this?)

Heh.  Yeah Ed, c'mon!

--
James Powell - Software Engineer/Reverse Engineering  -   ja...@advancedsw.com
               Advanced Software Technologies, Inc.
            "Best Tools.  Best Service.  No Compromise."