Post by Marco Scholzhttps://if50.substack.com/p/1977-zork
... adventure ref & topic drift ...
I would see various people at the monthly user group meetings hosted at
SLAC (off sand hill rd) including TYMSHARE people ... and also
periodically drop by TYMSHARE.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tymshare
TYMSHARE had also made their CMS-based online computer conferencing free
to the (IBM mainframe user group) SHARE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHARE_(computing)
starting in AUG1976 as VMSHARE ... archives here
http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare
I cut a deal with TYMSHARE to get monthly tape dump of all VMSHARE files
for putting up on internal IBM network and online systems (the most
trouble I had was with IBM lawyers concerned internal employees would be
contaminated by customer information, including finding out IBM execs
were claiming one thing about customers and the customers saying
something different) ... so had several reasons for periodically
dropping in on TYMSHARE.
One TYMSHARE visit they demo'ed something called "ADVENTUR" that they
had copied from Stanford PDP10 system to their PDP10 and then ported to
CMS ... and I was also able to get a copy&source to make available
online inside IBM. adventure text history
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_game#History_of_Western_adventure_games
The origins of text adventure games is difficult to trace as records of
computing around the 1970s were not as well documented. Text-based games
had existed prior to 1976 that featured elements of exploring maps or
solving puzzles, such as Hunt the Wumpus (1975), but lacked a narrative
element, a feature essential for adventure games.[74] Colossal Cave
Adventure (1976), written by William Crowther and Don Woods, is widely
considered to be the first game in the adventure genre,
TYMSHARE people told a story that when TYMSHARE executives found out
that customers were playing games on ("commercial") TYMSHARE systems,
they directed staff to put a stop to it ... until they found out that
customer game playing had grown to 1/3rd of TYMSHARE revenue.
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970