How many of you played these original games when they came out?
For the TRS-80:
Raaka-Tu
Xenos
Bedlam
Pyramid 2000
Asylum
Asylum II
For a mainframe:
Colossal Cave
For Commodore-64:
Asylum
Just interested in how many old timers we have, the story I’m programming contains homages to all of these games.
Yes, although it was on a Micro-PDP (or some such small DEC) not a mainframe.
I opened ADVENT up once in a text editor, not understanding the concept of binary executables, and corrupted it by saving it. My Dad was nice enough to reinstall it for me.
I consider myself “old timey” but I was an Apple II kid. I touched a TRS-80 only once or twice in life. Played a ton of C64 at friends’ houses, but almost never adventure games.
-Wade
My dad had a TRS-80, and apparently modded the hell out of it. He mentioned cranking up to 500 kB of storage, because a friend helped him solder extra chips into the future-proof memory slots. He also had it running at 5 kHz, I think. That was running OS 9, if I remember right.
He’s not too keen on text adventures (though he loves reading, so it’s not really a bias for the visual medium). The closest he’s played is Moraff’s World. He also mentioned “Labyrinth”, but that might be an alternative name.
Apparently his friend played a lot of IF, but my dad can’t remember what the games were called.
I think I’m too young for most of these systems, but I also didn’t have any gaming consoles. I might have had the opportunity to own a Commodore-64—just based on timing overlap—but the oldest systems I had access to were a Windows 95 and 98.
[Mod - Trying to see if I can make this a poll (for Science)]
0 voters
Definitely none at the time they originally came out. My mother played Colossal Cave on a mainframe back when she was in college, so I’m one whole generation too late.
Colossal Cave is the game that first got me into IF, though—it was just in a modern emulator. (Similarly, out of these, I played Bedlam and Pyramid 2000 in TRS-80 emulators back before I discovered the modern IF community; a while ago I asked for help identifying Bedlam from a vague description, since I’d never been able to find it again.)
I played Raaka Tu right when it came out. A friend of mine from school had a TRS-80 and we went and picked out the game at the store. It was the first adventure game I’d played, and only the fourth computer game total. The others being Hunt the Wumpus, Star Trek, and some kind of 20-questions style game involving a jury if I recall correctly. At the time I didn’t have my own computer and the other three games were played on a TRS-80 at school. I beat Raaka Tu in a weekend, and was fascinated by how the computer seemingly understood what I was saying.
I got my first computer in 1983 and the first games I bought for my brand new Commodore Vic-20 were the Scott Adams adventure cartridges: Pirate’s Cove was the first. I remember being confused by the British use of the word ‘flat’.
I played a couple of games on a mainframe via a IBM typewriter terminal. It was very discouraged by the admins, due to paper wastage and resource waste.
I had several TRS-80s back then. I mostly did work on them believe it or not. I had a “word processor” called Scripsit(?) that I produced running spreadsheet type printouts for ships I was inspecting at the time.
I vaguely remember Rakatu. I mostly played Sublogic’s FS-1 flight simulator. It was amazing back then and I was an aviator…
I upgraded from the Vic-20 after a year or so and played Flight Simulator II on my Commodore 64. I still have it, flight manual and all.
I first played Colossal Cave as “Apple Adventure” on an Apple ][ in the late 70s. I had my C64 when Asylum came out, but didn’t play it back then. I learned to program on a TRS-80 Model I, but never owned one or any of its games.
Your version of FS-II must be collectable. ?
I played Colossal Cave (or it may have been called ‘Adventure’) on my Exidy Sorcerer back in '79 or '80 I think. The first ones I played were some of the early Scott Adams ones as well as a couple of the Zork games from Infocom. Most of these would have been on CP/M.
The memory is a bit hazy these days.
Honestly no idea. I’ve lots of Commodore stuff I’ve decided to get rid of, but haven’t gotten around to it.
I still have a functional C64 in the closet. I used it a little a few months ago. I forgot how awful the keyboard was.
I’m old enough to remember most of the 80s, but the only text adventure I had the opportunity to play before my teenage years was Twin Kingdom Valley. (It had a huge impact on me though. All my earliest attempts to make video games resulted in text adventures or Hammurapi-type games.)