01-Jan-2000 00:54:07 -0800,1569;000000000021 Return-Path: <MRC@Panda.COM> Received: via tmail-4.1(11) (invoked by user mrc) for t20arc; Sat, 1 Jan 2000 00:54:07 -0800 (PST) Date: Sat, 1 Jan 2000 00:42:54 -0800 (PST) From: Mark Crispin <MRC@Panda.COM> Sender: Mark Crispin <mrc@Ikkoku-Kan.Panda.COM> Subject: TOPS-20 Y2K report To: TOPS-20 Hackers and Yackers <TOPS-20@Panda.COM> Message-ID: <MailManager.946716174.4455.mrc@Ikkoku-Kan.Panda.COM> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII ...Dom Perignon and SPAM... BURP! The Panda 2020 went through the year without complaint. However, I noticed something... TOPS-20 treats all two-digit years as being in the 20th century; that is, 1/1/00 is treated as 1/1/1900. Also, if OD%4YR is off in ODTIM%, a four digit year is output except when the year is in the 20th century, e.g. the following output from VDIRECTORY: MAIL.TXT.1;P770000 18 45313(7) 1-Jan-2000 00:47:25 MRC MM.INIT.75;P777700 1 1211(7) 1-Jul-91 13:21:50 MRC These are arguably not Y2K bugs, since this behavior has been documented for years. But maybe we should fix this. How should we do it? My suggestions: For IDTIM%, any year between 00 and 63 be in the 21st century, and from 64 (the start of TOPS-10) until 99 should be in the 20th century. That'll give us another 64 years to figure out something better to do. For ODTIM%, I suggest that OD%4YR be deprecated, and treated as if it is always on. I haven't checked for Y2K bugs in the various random TOPS-10 applications that were ported to TOPS-20. 04-Jan-2000 00:47:19 -0800,2720;000000000020 Return-Path: <victor@csd.uu.se> Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for t20arc; Tue, 4 Jan 2000 00:47:19 -0800 (PST) Received: from meryl.it.uu.se (root@meryl.csd.uu.se [130.238.12.42]) by Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU; Tue, 04 Jan 2000 00:46:28 PST Received: from Djilar.DoCS.UU.SE (victor@Djilar.DoCS.UU.SE [130.238.8.123]) by meryl.it.uu.se (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id JAA05937; Tue, 4 Jan 2000 09:38:46 +0100 (MET) Received: (victor@localhost) by Djilar.DoCS.UU.SE (8.6.12/8.6.12) id JAA07484; Tue, 4 Jan 2000 09:38:45 +0100 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <14449.45461.576125.70029@Djilar.DoCS.UU.SE> Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2000 09:38:45 +0100 (MET) From: Bjorn Victor <Bjorn.Victor@DoCS.UU.SE> To: Mark Crispin <MRC@panda.com> Cc: TOPS-20 Hackers and Yackers <TOPS-20@panda.com> Subject: Re: TOPS-20 Y2K report In-Reply-To: <MailManager.946716174.4455.mrc@Ikkoku-Kan.Panda.COM> References: <MailManager.946716174.4455.mrc@Ikkoku-Kan.Panda.COM> X-Mailer: VM 6.72 under 21.1 (patch 6) "Big Bend" XEmacs Lucid Mark Crispin writes: > My suggestions: > > For IDTIM%, any year between 00 and 63 be in the 21st century, and from 64 > (the start of TOPS-10) until 99 should be in the 20th century. That'll give > us another 64 years to figure out something better to do. I think the scheme of Common Lisp (pun unintentional) is better. In its definition of Decoded Time format, a year between 0 and 99 is assumed to be equal to the integer modulo 100 and within fifty years of the current year (inclusive backwards and exclusive forwards). Thus, in the year 2001, year 63 is 1963, but year 21 is 2021. Your scheme has the advantage of being backwards-compatible, but I am entirely for doing "something better" as soon as possible. > For ODTIM%, I suggest that OD%4YR be deprecated, and treated as if it is > always on. Is there really any reason for this? I believe that printing two-digit years will still be useful, as long as we know what those two-digit numbers mean. Another issue may be compatibility with the various flavours of TOPS-20 which actually exist. For example, it seems like the version running on a friend's SC30M (monitor version 7(21733)) has a hack using 2B18 in AC3 to ODTIM% to index a "year base" table, and if the year being output is within a century of that base, 2-digit format is used. The table seems to have the values [ 1900., 1900., 1964., 1964. ]. Maybe someone out there has source/documentation of this hack? Is it a late autopatch thing? The XKL system does not seem to have this, but instead always outputs 4-digit format. Comments? -- Bjorn 04-Jan-2000 08:30:08 -0800,2363;000000000020 Return-Path: <MRC@Panda.COM> Received: via tmail-4.1(11) (invoked by user mrc) for t20arc; Tue, 4 Jan 2000 08:30:07 -0800 (PST) Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2000 08:21:58 -0800 (PST) From: Mark Crispin <MRC@Panda.COM> Sender: Mark Crispin <mrc@Ikkoku-Kan.Panda.COM> Subject: Re: TOPS-20 Y2K report To: Bjorn Victor <Bjorn.Victor@DoCS.UU.SE> cc: TOPS-20 Hackers and Yackers <TOPS-20@panda.com> In-Reply-To: <14449.45461.576125.70029@Djilar.DoCS.UU.SE> Message-ID: <MailManager.947002918.19774.mrc@Ikkoku-Kan.Panda.COM> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII On Tue, 4 Jan 2000 09:38:45 +0100 (MET), Bjorn Victor wrote: > I think the scheme of Common Lisp (pun unintentional) is better. In > its definition of Decoded Time format, a year between 0 and 99 is > assumed to be equal to the integer modulo 100 and within fifty years > of the current year (inclusive backwards and exclusive forwards). > Thus, in the year 2001, year 63 is 1963, but year 21 is 2021. Hmm. The problem is, Americans are quite accustomed to writing their birth year as two digits, and this will present a problem for those of us who are approaching 50 (or who have already crossed the big five-oh). The other problem is that in a few short years, there will be files that are over 50 years old.... > > For ODTIM%, I suggest that OD%4YR be deprecated, and treated as if it is > > always on. > Is there really any reason for this? I believe that printing > two-digit years will still be useful, as long as we know what those > two-digit numbers mean. That's the problem. We may not always remember what two-digit years actually mean. Also, what do we do after 2064, when it truly becomes ambiguous what a two digit date in a printout means? > For example, it seems like the version > running on a friend's SC30M (monitor version 7(21733)) has a hack > using 2B18 in AC3 to ODTIM% to index a "year base" table, and > if the year being output is within a century of that base, 2-digit > format is used. The table seems to have the values > [ 1900., 1900., 1964., 1964. ]. Maybe someone out there has > source/documentation of this hack? Is it a late autopatch thing? The > XKL system does not seem to have this, but instead always outputs > 4-digit format. This isn't in the final DEC sources; it might be an SC hack. 21-Apr-2000 13:06:30 -0700,1772;000000000000 Return-Path: <pat@transarc.ibm.com> Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for t20arc; Fri, 21 Apr 2000 13:06:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fw0.transarc.com (xfw.transarc.ibm.com [192.54.226.51]) by Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU; Fri, 21 Apr 2000 13:05:32 PDT Received: from mailhost2.transarc.ibm.com (mailhost2.transarc.ibm.com [9.38.192.125]) by fw0.transarc.com (AIX4.2/UCB 8.7/8.7) with ESMTP id PAA09280 for <tops-20@panda.com>; Fri, 21 Apr 2000 15:44:49 -0400 (EDT) Received: from smithfield.transarc.ibm.com (smithfield.transarc.ibm.com [9.38.192.92]) by mailhost2.transarc.ibm.com (8.8.0/8.8.0) with SMTP id QAA05464 for <tops-20@panda.com>; Fri, 21 Apr 2000 16:04:04 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2000 16:04:03 -0400 (EDT) From: Pat Barron <pat@transarc.ibm.com> To: tops-20@panda.com Subject: What is on the second tape of V4.1 distribution ? Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.3.96.1000421155657.23366I-100000@smithfield.transarc.ibm.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII OK, so I'm messing with this KS10 emulator (don't ask for a copy - at least, not yet; I'm somewhat embarrassed by how long I've been working on it and how little is done). I'd like to be able to try running TOPS-20 on it, when it's ready for that. I have two 4.1 tape images; one "TOPS-20 V4.1 2020 INSTL", which I *hope* is a bootable tape. The other tape image is "T-20 V4.1 2020 DIST 1/2" (i.e., tape 1 of 2). I don't have the second tape. So, two (hopefully quick) questions: 1) Is the "INSTL" tape indeed bootable? 2) What is on the second tape of the "DIST" set, and can I get by without it? Would the second tape have TCP/IP? I believe this was available for V4, but not sure if it was supported on the KS10. Thanks, --Pat. 21-Apr-2000 13:27:35 -0700,2362;000000000000 Return-Path: <MRC@Panda.COM> Received: via tmail-4.1(11) (invoked by user mrc) for t20arc; Fri, 21 Apr 2000 13:27:35 -0700 (PDT) Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2000 13:12:12 -0700 (PDT) From: Mark Crispin <MRC@Panda.COM> Sender: Mark Crispin <mrc@Ikkoku-Kan.Panda.COM> Subject: re: What is on the second tape of V4.1 distribution ? To: Pat Barron <pat@transarc.ibm.com> cc: tops-20@panda.com In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.3.96.1000421155657.23366I-100000@smithfield.transarc.ibm.com> Message-ID: <MailManager.956347932.15421.mrc@Ikkoku-Kan.Panda.COM> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII On Fri, 21 Apr 2000 16:04:03 -0400 (EDT), Pat Barron wrote: > 1) Is the "INSTL" tape indeed bootable? Yes. It contains: KS ucode, MONITR.EXE, EXEC.EXE, DLUSER.EXE, DLUSER data, DUMPER.EXE, DUMPER data. Simple instructions after loading microcode 1) boot the monitor, start at 143, follow prompts to create a PS filesystem, enter date/time, wait until it quiets down. 2) Type CTRL/C, get "NO EXEC" message following by mini-EXEC "MX>" prompt. 3) Type "G MTA0:", then "S". You should now be in an EXEC. 4) Type "RUN MTA0:", get DLUSER with a "DLUSER>" prompt. 5) Type "LOAD MTA0:", wait for completion, type "EXIT". 6) Type "RUN MTA0:", get DUMPER with a "DUMPER>" prompt. 7) Type "RESTORE MTA0:", wait for completion; repeat until end of tape. 8) Type "EXIT". 9) Do whatever procedure is necessary to install SMBOOT.BIN for bootstrap purposes in your emulator. 10) Type CTRL/E followed by "CEASE +0:0:5", then LOGOUT. 11) Wait for "Shutdown complete" 12) Give console shutdown command; this is a command that deposits non-zero into location 30. 13) Reboot the system, loading the monitor from disk this time, and answer "Y" to the "Run CHECKD?" question. 14) CTRL/C, log in as OPERATOR, password DEC-20, start creating accounts. > 2) What is on the second tape of the "DIST" set, and can I get by > without it? It's a continuation of <LANGUAGE-SOURCES>, which is mostly BLISS garbage, but also has such things as MACRO.MAC and LINK sources. For some bizarre reason, GALAXY sources are there too. The real impact is that you'll lose the ability to rebuild GALAXY if you don't have the second tape. > Would the second tape have TCP/IP? Nope. Not on 4.x TCP was first supported in 5.1. 21-Apr-2000 18:04:51 -0700,1449;000000000000 Return-Path: <markg@garetech.com.au> Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for t20arc; Fri, 21 Apr 2000 18:04:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: from sr14.nsw-remote.bigpond.net.au (sr14.nsw-remote.bigpond.net.au [24.192.3.29]) by Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU; Fri, 21 Apr 2000 18:04:22 PDT Received: from [10.0.0.10] (CPE-144-132-156-133.nsw.bigpond.net.au [144.132.156.133]) by sr14.nsw-remote.bigpond.net.au (Pro-8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id LAA26179; Sat, 22 Apr 2000 11:02:01 +1000 (EST) User-Agent: Microsoft-Outlook-Express-Macintosh-Edition/5.02.2022 Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2000 11:02:07 +1000 Subject: Re: What is on the second tape of V4.1 distribution ? From: Mark Garrett <markg@garetech.com.au> To: Pat Barron <pat@transarc.ibm.com>, <tops-20@panda.com> Message-ID: <B527372F.499A%markg@garetech.com.au> In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.3.96.1000421155657.23366I-100000@smithfield.transarc.ibm.com> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit on 22/04/2000 06:04, Pat Barron at pat@transarc.ibm.com wrote: > OK, so I'm messing with this KS10 emulator (don't ask for a copy - at > least, not yet; I'm somewhat embarrassed by how long I've been working on > it and how little is done). I'd like to be able to try running TOPS-20 on Never get embarrassed by that, you don't now how short a time unless you know how long the rest of us have also been at it :) Cheers mark :) 10-May-2000 10:21:59 -0700,603;000000000000 Return-Path: <MRC@Panda.COM> Received: via tmail-4.1(11) (invoked by user mrc) for t20arc; Wed, 10 May 2000 10:21:58 -0700 (PDT) Date: Wed, 10 May 2000 10:21:11 -0700 (PDT) From: Mark Crispin <MRC@Panda.COM> Sender: Mark Crispin <mrc@Ikkoku-Kan.Panda.COM> Subject: 36th anniversary of 36 bits at DEC To: TOPS-20 Hackers and Yackers <TOPS-20@Panda.COM> Message-ID: <MailManager.957979271.15421.mrc@Ikkoku-Kan.Panda.COM> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Rumor has it that today is the 36th anniversary of 36 bits at DEC. Give your favorite PDP-10 a hug today. 16-May-2000 08:17:13 -0700,2012;000000000000 Return-Path: <rossman@shibuya.East.Sun.COM> Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for t20arc; Tue, 16 May 2000 08:17:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: from gotham.East.Sun.COM ([129.154.51.51]) by mercury.Sun.COM (8.9.3+Sun/8.9.3) with ESMTP id IAA20574 for <TOPS-20@Panda.COM>; Tue, 16 May 2000 08:16:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from shibuya.East.Sun.COM (shibuya [129.154.51.140]) by gotham.East.Sun.COM (8.9.3+Sun/8.9.3/ENSMAIL,v1.7) with ESMTP id LAA15917 for <TOPS-20@Panda.COM>; Tue, 16 May 2000 11:16:49 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from rossman@localhost) by shibuya.East.Sun.COM (8.9.3+Sun/8.9.3) id LAA14741 for TOPS-20@Panda.COM; Tue, 16 May 2000 11:17:16 -0400 (EDT) Resent-Date: Tue, 16 May 2000 11:17:16 -0400 (EDT) Resent-From: Ken Rossman - NYC SE <rossman@shibuya.East.Sun.COM> Resent-Message-Id: <200005161517.LAA14741@shibuya.East.Sun.COM> Message-Id: <200005161517.LAA14741@shibuya.East.Sun.COM> Date: Tue, 16 May 2000 11:17:16 -0400 (EDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Ken Rossman - NYC SE <rossman@shibuya.East.Sun.COM> To: TOPS-20@Panda.COM Subject: Original Adventure game Resent-To: TOPS-20@Panda.COM OK, so this is not quite exactly a TOPS20-specific question, but since TOPS was one major platform this code ran on... Anyone remember the old, original, text-based Adventure game (OK, OK, I know that's kinda like asking, "Anyone remember AIR?")... Any chance this might still be kicking around in close to its original form, and/or in source code. Or might there perhaps be the same game (same cave map, treasure list, etc) in some other form, such as one that could run under Unix, or even on a Windows or a Mac machine??? :-) Ken Rossman, NYC SE 212-558-9182 || 212-558-9329 (FAX) Sun Microsystems Email: Ken.Rossman@Sun.COM 2 World Trade Ctr, 25th Fl. SUN URL: http://noho.East/~rossman New York, NY 10048 Ext.URL: http://www.columbia.edu/~rossman 16-May-2000 12:05:12 -0700,2388;000000000000 Return-Path: <jms@tardis.tymnet.com> Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for t20arc; Tue, 16 May 2000 12:05:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: by tymix.Tymnet.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA20776; Tue, 16 May 2000 12:03:06 PDT Received: from tardis by Tymnet.COM (in.smtpd); 16 May 100 12:03:05 PDT Received: (from jms@localhost) by tardis.tymnet.com (8.8.8+Sun/8.8.8) id MAA12885; Tue, 16 May 2000 12:03:04 -0700 (PDT) Date: Tue, 16 May 2000 12:03:04 -0700 From: Joe Smith <Joe.Smith@wcom.com> To: Ken Rossman - NYC SE <rossman@shibuya.east.sun.com> Cc: TOPS-20@panda.com Subject: Re: Original Adventure game Message-Id: <20000516120304.F9297@tardis.Tymnet.COM> References: <200005161517.LAA14741@shibuya.East.Sun.COM> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 1.0i In-Reply-To: <200005161517.LAA14741@shibuya.East.Sun.COM>; from rossman@shibuya.east.sun.com on Tue, May 16, 2000 at 11:17:16AM -0400 On Tue, May 16, 2000 at 11:17:16AM -0400, Ken Rossman - NYC SE wrote: > OK, so this is not quite exactly a TOPS20-specific question, but since TOPS > was one major platform this code ran on... > > Anyone remember the old, original, text-based Adventure game (OK, OK, I > know that's kinda like asking, "Anyone remember AIR?")... > > Any chance this might still be kicking around in close to its original > form, and/or in source code. Or might there perhaps be the same game (same > cave map, treasure list, etc) in some other form, such as one that could > run under Unix, or even on a Windows or a Mac machine??? Someone at Stanford had a CGI interface to ADVENT; it would do a [ restore-game, do one move, save-game ] operation by saving state in a long URL. It appears that that one is no longer around. While running Netscape, enter advent colossal cave in the Location field (instead of a URL). That will bring up the Google search engine. The fourth entry it lists is "'Adventure' downloads" http://people.delphi.com/rickadams/adventure/e_downloads.html It lists DOS, Amiga, Mac, and Unix-C versions. -Joe -- Joe Smith MCI WorldCom, On-Net Design/Impl, Product Technical Support UNIX and Tech Sup: TYMNET Network, Xstream Packet Services (Public X.25) <Joe.Smith@wcom.com> 2560 N 1st St, MS-5046/746, San Jose, CA 95131 Voice: 408-533-6220 = vnet 854-6220 Fax: 408-533-6702 = vnet 854-6702 16-May-2000 17:54:23 -0700,2292;000000000000 Return-Path: <wex@changing-leaves.com> Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for t20arc; Tue, 16 May 2000 17:54:22 -0700 (PDT) Received: from uhura.concentric.net (uhura.concentric.net [206.173.118.93]) by Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU; Tue, 16 May 2000 17:53:28 PDT Received: from cliff.concentric.net (cliff.concentric.net [206.173.118.90]) by uhura.concentric.net (8.9.1a/(98/12/15 5.12)) id RAA03488; Tue, 16 May 2000 17:18:23 -0400 (EDT) [1-800-745-2747 The Concentric Network] Errors-To: <wex@changing-leaves.com> Received: from [206.173.12.49] (ts001d37.box-ma.concentric.net [206.173.12.49]) by cliff.concentric.net (8.9.1a) id RAA01071; Tue, 16 May 2000 17:18:11 -0400 (EDT) X-Sender: wex@pop3.concentric.net Message-Id: <v03007801b5476a81797f@[206.173.12.49]> In-Reply-To: <200005161517.LAA14741@shibuya.East.Sun.COM> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Tue, 16 May 2000 17:18:11 -0400 To: Ken Rossman - NYC SE <rossman@shibuya.East.Sun.COM>, TOPS-20@panda.com From: Wexelblat <wex@changing-leaves.com> Subject: Re: Original Adventure game At 11:17 AM -0400 5/16/00, Ken Rossman - NYC SE wrote: >OK, so this is not quite exactly a TOPS20-specific question, but since TOPS >was one major platform this code ran on... > >Anyone remember the old, original, text-based Adventure game (OK, OK, I >know that's kinda like asking, "Anyone remember AIR?")... > >Any chance this might still be kicking around in close to its original >form, and/or in source code. Or might there perhaps be the same game (same >cave map, treasure list, etc) in some other form, such as one that could >run under Unix, or even on a Windows or a Mac machine??? > >:-) > >Ken Rossman, NYC SE 212-558-9182 || 212-558-9329 (FAX) >Sun Microsystems Email: Ken.Rossman@Sun.COM >2 World Trade Ctr, 25th Fl. SUN URL: http://noho.East/~rossman >New York, NY 10048 Ext.URL: http://www.columbia.edu/~rossman I have a file on this here machine called Zork anthology that has "zork I" on it that's as close as I can remember to Bill Crowther's adventure; It has a couple of frobozz things addad, but is basically adventure I don't remember where it came from and this thing's a Mac. -- ...wex 16-May-2000 18:34:31 -0700,1372;000000000000 Return-Path: <sra@hactrn.net> Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for t20arc; Tue, 16 May 2000 18:34:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: from thrintun.hactrn.net (hactrn.ne.mediaone.net [24.218.242.23]) by Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU; Tue, 16 May 2000 18:33:50 PDT Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:26892 "EHLO hactrn.net" ident: "IDENT-NOT-QUERIED [port 26892]") by thrintun.hactrn.net with ESMTP id <23541-225>; Tue, 16 May 2000 21:32:19 -0400 To: TOPS-20@panda.com Subject: Re: Original Adventure game In-Reply-To: Message from Wexelblat <wex@changing-leaves.com> dated "Tue, 16 May 2000 20:59:20 EDT" <v03007801b5476a81797f@[206.173.12.49]> References: <v03007801b5476a81797f@[206.173.12.49]> Mime-Version: 1.0 (generated by tm-edit 7.106) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII From: Rob Austein <sra@hactrn.net> Message-Id: <20000517013225Z23541-225+59@thrintun.hactrn.net> Date: Tue, 16 May 2000 21:32:19 -0400 I may be misremembering something that was already ancient history by my era, but wasn't the original Adventure/Zork written on MIT-DM, perhaps written in MDL, but in any case running under ITS? If so, LCS probably still has the code in a vault somewhere. It's even possible that it was transcribed from 7-track to 9-track tape sometime in the early '90s (CENT, ALAN, or TY would be most likely to know). 16-May-2000 18:55:24 -0700,1447;000000000000 Return-Path: <jtw@lcs.mit.edu> Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for t20arc; Tue, 16 May 2000 18:55:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [18.26.0.167] (sinope.lcs.mit.edu [18.26.0.167]) by mercury.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id VAA04521; Tue, 16 May 2000 21:52:42 -0400 (EDT) Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: jtw@mercury.lcs.mit.edu Message-Id: <v04210126b547ab492161@[18.26.0.167]> In-Reply-To: <20000517013225Z23541-225+59@thrintun.hactrn.net> References: <v03007801b5476a81797f@[206.173.12.49]> <20000517013225Z23541-225+59@thrintun.hactrn.net> Date: Tue, 16 May 2000 21:52:09 -0400 To: Rob Austein <sra@hactrn.net>, TOPS-20@panda.com From: John Wroclawski <jtw@lcs.mit.edu> Subject: Re: Original Adventure game Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" At 9:32 PM -0400 5/16/00, Rob Austein wrote: >I may be misremembering something that was already ancient history by >my era, but wasn't the original Adventure/Zork written on MIT-DM, >perhaps written in MDL, but in any case running under ITS? If so, LCS >probably still has the code in a vault somewhere. It's even possible >that it was transcribed from 7-track to 9-track tape sometime in the >early '90s (CENT, ALAN, or TY would be most likely to know). Zork was. Adventure predates that; not the same game. (Why yes, I -am- old yet; why do you ask?) I'm under the impression that the original Adventure was written in Fortran.. -john 16-May-2000 19:18:55 -0700,3282;000000000000 Return-Path: <smj@sdf.lonestar.org> Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for t20arc; Tue, 16 May 2000 19:18:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: from sdf.lonestar.org (root@t3-d-static-237.adsl.directlink.net [63.68.131.237]) by Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU; Tue, 16 May 2000 19:17:58 PDT Received: med sdf.lonestar.org via sendmail vid stdio Message-Id: <m12rojf-0004IuC@sdf.lonestar.org> From: smj@sdf.lonestar.org (Stephen Jones) Subject: ADVENT. To: tops-20@panda.com Date: Tue, 16 May 100 21:18:38 +0000 (GMT) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit XKL is distributing ADVENT II (430pt scoring) with their TOPS-20 Monitor 7(102560)-1 .. I'm pretty sure they're going to have the source on there as well... let me look. @v toad:<*>advent.*.* TOAD:<UNSUPPORTED> ADVENT.EXE.1;P775252 66 33792(36) 21-Jun-1979 02:26:11 HELLIWELL Total of 66 pages in 1 file @ @v ps:<*>advent.*.* PS:<UNSUPPORTED> ADVENT.EXE.1;P775252 66 33792(36) 21-Jun-79 02:26:11 ALDERSON Total of 66 pages in 1 file @ unfortunately it doesn't look like it .. and these were searching the DECUS libraries on the systems. Here is something funny .. if you quit without doing anything you get 32 points.. but if you quit after asking for instructions, you get 27 points :) @advent This is "Version II" of Adventure. Top score is now 430 points. Welcome to Adventure!! Would you like instructions? y Somewhere nearby is Colossal Cave, where others have found fortunes in treasure and gold, though it is rumored that some who enter are never seen again. Magic is said to work in the cave. I will be your eyes and hands. Direct me with commands of 1 or 2 words. I should warn you that I look at only the first five letters of each word, so you'll have to enter "northeast" as "ne" to distinguish it from "north". (Should you get stuck, type "help" for some general hints. For infor- mation on how to end your adventure, etc., type "info".) - - - This program was originally developed by Willie Crowther. Most of the features of the current program were added by Don Woods (DON @ SU-AI). Contact Don if you have any questions, comments, etc. You are standing at the end of a road before a small brick building. Around you is a forest. A small stream flows out of the building and down a gully. quit Do you really want to quit now? y OK You scored 27 out of a possible 430, using 1 turns. You are obviously a rank amateur. Better luck next time. To achieve the next higher rating, you need 19 more points. EXIT @ @advent This is "Version II" of Adventure. Top score is now 430 points. Welcome to Adventure!! Would you like instructions? n You are standing at the end of a road before a small brick building. Around you is a forest. A small stream flows out of the building and down a gully. quit Do you really want to quit now? y OK You scored 32 out of a possible 430, using 1 turns. You are obviously a rank amateur. Better luck next time. To achieve the next higher rating, you need 14 more points. EXIT @ 16-May-2000 19:29:20 -0700,1811;000000000000 Return-Path: <jms@tardis.tymnet.com> Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for t20arc; Tue, 16 May 2000 19:29:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: by tymix.Tymnet.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA23556; Tue, 16 May 2000 19:27:17 PDT Received: from tardis by Tymnet.COM (in.smtpd); 16 May 100 19:27:17 PDT Received: (from jms@localhost) by tardis.tymnet.com (8.8.8+Sun/8.8.8) id TAA13684; Tue, 16 May 2000 19:27:16 -0700 (PDT) Date: Tue, 16 May 2000 19:27:16 -0700 From: Joe Smith <Joe.Smith@wcom.com> To: John Wroclawski <jtw@lcs.mit.edu> Cc: Rob Austein <sra@hactrn.net>, TOPS-20@panda.com Subject: Re: Original Adventure game Message-Id: <20000516192716.I9297@tardis.Tymnet.COM> References: <v03007801b5476a81797f@[206.173.12.49]> <20000517013225Z23541-225+59@thrintun.hactrn.net> <v04210126b547ab492161@[18.26.0.167]> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 1.0i In-Reply-To: <v04210126b547ab492161@[18.26.0.167]>; from jtw@lcs.mit.edu on Tue, May 16, 2000 at 09:52:09PM -0400 On Tue, May 16, 2000 at 09:52:09PM -0400, John Wroclawski wrote: > At 9:32 PM -0400 5/16/00, Rob Austein wrote: > >I may be misremembering something that was already ancient history by > >my era, but wasn't the original Adventure/Zork written on MIT-DM, > >perhaps written in MDL, but in any case running under ITS? > > I'm under the impression that the original Adventure was written in Fortran.. ADVENT was written in CDC FORTRAN, converted to PDP-10 FORTRAN. Zork was written in MDL. -- Joe Smith MCI WorldCom, On-Net Design/Impl, Product Technical Support UNIX and Tech Sup: TYMNET Network, Xstream Packet Services (Public X.25) <Joe.Smith@wcom.com> 2560 N 1st St, MS-5046/746, San Jose, CA 95131 Voice: 408-533-6220 = vnet 854-6220 Fax: 408-533-6702 = vnet 854-6702 16-May-2000 19:35:02 -0700,1932;000000000000 Return-Path: <jms@tardis.tymnet.com> Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for t20arc; Tue, 16 May 2000 19:35:02 -0700 (PDT) Received: by tymix.Tymnet.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA23596; Tue, 16 May 2000 19:32:59 PDT Received: from tardis by Tymnet.COM (in.smtpd); 16 May 100 19:32:59 PDT Received: (from jms@localhost) by tardis.tymnet.com (8.8.8+Sun/8.8.8) id TAA13700; Tue, 16 May 2000 19:32:58 -0700 (PDT) Date: Tue, 16 May 2000 19:32:58 -0700 From: Joe Smith <Joe.Smith@wcom.com> To: Stephen Jones <smj@sdf.lonestar.org> Cc: tops-20@panda.com Subject: Re: ADVENT. Message-Id: <20000516193258.J9297@tardis.Tymnet.COM> References: <m12rojf-0004IuC@sdf.lonestar.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 1.0i In-Reply-To: <m12rojf-0004IuC@sdf.lonestar.org>; from smj@sdf.lonestar.org on Tue, May 16, 2000 at 09:18:38PM +0000 On Tue, May 16, 2000 at 09:18:38PM +0000, Stephen Jones wrote: > XKL is distributing ADVENT II (430pt scoring) with their > TOPS-20 Monitor 7(102560)-1 .. I'm pretty sure they're > going to have the source on there as well... > unfortunately it doesn't look like it .. and these were searching the > DECUS libraries on the systems. http://people.delphi.com/rickadams/adventure/e_downloads.html This is the original game as written by Willie Crowther and expanded by Don Woods. <LI type=square>The original PDP-10 Fortran <A HREF="ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/source/advent-original.tar.gz"> source code</A>. Every other version can be tracked down to this one. Not to be recommended for actual porting to modern machines though, as it has many dependancies on the nature of the PDP-10 (5 characters-per-word packing and the like).</LI> <LI>Kevin Black's DOS version of his and Bob Supnik's DECUS version, available as a <A HREF="ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/pc/adv350kb.zip">DOS</A> executable.</LI> 17-May-2000 10:39:16 -0700,1482;000000000000 Return-Path: <MRC@Panda.COM> Received: via tmail-4.1(11) (invoked by user mrc) for t20arc; Wed, 17 May 2000 10:39:16 -0700 (PDT) Date: Wed, 17 May 2000 10:22:22 -0700 (PDT) From: Mark Crispin <MRC@Panda.COM> Sender: Mark Crispin <mrc@Ikkoku-Kan.Panda.COM> Subject: Seventeen years ago today To: TOPS-20 Hackers and Yackers <TOPS-20@Panda.COM> In-Reply-To: <200005171500.IAA23592@Ikkoku-Kan.Panda.COM> Message-ID: <MailManager.958584142.15421.mrc@Ikkoku-Kan.Panda.COM> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Seventeen years ago today was a day that shall live in infamy: the day that DEC decided to cancel the PDP-10 product line. We're still around, but neither DEC nor VAX is any longer. When DEC stabbed its mainframe customers in the back, it set in motion a process that eventually destroyed DEC. Never again would purchase decisions be made by "we'll buy the current DEC product, no matter what it costs." DEC had a loyal customer base and squandered it. Let us take a minute from our busy days and reflect on what might had been. Maybe subsequent history would have ended up the same. Maybe not. A healthy clone market, with 30-bit PDP-10 machines (effectively the same as 32-bit byte addressed machines, actually slightly larger) and software that wasn't actively being suppressed, would still be viable today. Image being able to write code without having to worry about one UNIX kernel design bug or another... 17-May-2000 11:27:30 -0700,2940;000000000000 Return-Path: <sra@hactrn.net> Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for t20arc; Wed, 17 May 2000 11:27:30 -0700 (PDT) Date: Wed, 17 May 2000 11:27:17 -0700 (PDT) Resent-Message-Id: <200005171827.LAA17100@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU> Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:62479 "EHLO hactrn.net" ident: "IDENT-NOT-QUERIED [port 62479]") by thrintun.hactrn.net with ESMTP id <23542-225>; Wed, 17 May 2000 03:51:02 -0400 Received: from chereion.hactrn.net ([10.0.1.3]:40196 "EHLO Zeke.Update.UU.SE" ident: "IDENT-NOT-QUERIED [port 40196]") by thrintun.hactrn.net with ESMTP id <23542-225>; Wed, 17 May 2000 02:57:55 -0400 Received: from localhost (bqt@localhost) by Zeke.Update.UU.SE (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id IAA27144 for <sra@hactrn.net>; Wed, 17 May 2000 08:56:38 +0200 From: Johnny Billquist <bqt@update.uu.se> To: Rob Austein <sra@hactrn.net> Subject: Re: Original Adventure game In-Reply-To: <20000517013225Z23541-225+59@thrintun.hactrn.net> Message-ID: <Pine.VUL.3.93.1000517085108.26940E-100000@Zeke.Update.UU.SE> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Orcpt: rfc822;sra@hactrn.net X-MD5UID: 2e4abb003cb00a806d3b94f44b7c6eae Resent-To: tops-20@panda.com Resent-From: Rob Austein <sra@hactrn.net> Resent-Date: Wed, 17 May 2000 03:51:02 -0400 On Tue, 16 May 2000, Rob Austein wrote: > I may be misremembering something that was already ancient history by > my era, but wasn't the original Adventure/Zork written on MIT-DM, > perhaps written in MDL, but in any case running under ITS? If so, LCS > probably still has the code in a vault somewhere. It's even possible > that it was transcribed from 7-track to 9-track tape sometime in the > early '90s (CENT, ALAN, or TY would be most likely to know). Unfortunately, the machine I'm on haven't fixed up their sendmail to prevent spamming, so I cannot sent to the TOPS-20 list right now. Perhaps you can relay this. ADVENT and ZORK are two different programs. ADVENT was written in FORTRAN from the start, running on different PDP-10s. Don't know if any one OS was the target. ZORK was written in MDL at MIT, and later translated to FORTRAN by someone at DEC. The MDL version is the one you run on TOPS-20 (and ITS amd T10 I assume), while the FORTRAN version ran on PDP-11s and VAXen. Furthermore, ADVENT appearantly spread from person to person, never officially distributed. For more information about ADVENT, the source code, and just about anything else, see: http://people.delphi.com/rickadams/adventure/e_downloads.html For a bit of information about ZORK (Called DUNGEON in the "original" FORTRAN version) see: http://www.csd.uwo.ca/Infocom/ Johnny Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt@update.uu.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol 17-May-2000 11:43:02 -0700,3325;000000000000 Return-Path: <MRC@Panda.COM> Received: via tmail-4.1(11) (invoked by user mrc) for t20arc; Wed, 17 May 2000 11:43:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for mrc; Wed, 17 May 2000 11:27:31 -0700 (PDT) Date: Wed, 17 May 2000 11:27:17 -0700 (PDT) Resent-Message-Id: <200005171827.LAA17100@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU> Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:62479 "EHLO hactrn.net" ident: "IDENT-NOT-QUERIED [port 62479]") by thrintun.hactrn.net with ESMTP id <23542-225>; Wed, 17 May 2000 03:51:02 -0400 Received: from chereion.hactrn.net ([10.0.1.3]:40196 "EHLO Zeke.Update.UU.SE" ident: "IDENT-NOT-QUERIED [port 40196]") by thrintun.hactrn.net with ESMTP id <23542-225>; Wed, 17 May 2000 02:57:55 -0400 Received: from localhost (bqt@localhost) by Zeke.Update.UU.SE (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id IAA27144 for <sra@hactrn.net>; Wed, 17 May 2000 08:56:38 +0200 From: Johnny Billquist <bqt@update.uu.se> To: Rob Austein <sra@hactrn.net> Subject: Re: Original Adventure game In-Reply-To: <20000517013225Z23541-225+59@thrintun.hactrn.net> Message-ID: <Pine.VUL.3.93.1000517085108.26940E-100000@Zeke.Update.UU.SE> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Orcpt: rfc822;sra@hactrn.net X-MD5UID: 2e4abb003cb00a806d3b94f44b7c6eae Resent-To: tops-20@panda.com Resent-From: Rob Austein <sra@hactrn.net> Resent-Date: Wed, 17 May 2000 03:51:02 -0400 ReSent-Date: Wed, 17 May 2000 11:42:36 -0700 (PDT) ReSent-From: Mark Crispin <MRC@Panda.COM> ReSent-Sender: Mark Crispin <mrc@Ikkoku-Kan.Panda.COM> ReSent-To: TOPS-20 Hackers and Yackers <TOPS-20@Panda.COM> ReSent-Message-ID: <MailManager.958588956.15421.mrc@Ikkoku-Kan.Panda.COM> On Tue, 16 May 2000, Rob Austein wrote: > I may be misremembering something that was already ancient history by > my era, but wasn't the original Adventure/Zork written on MIT-DM, > perhaps written in MDL, but in any case running under ITS? If so, LCS > probably still has the code in a vault somewhere. It's even possible > that it was transcribed from 7-track to 9-track tape sometime in the > early '90s (CENT, ALAN, or TY would be most likely to know). Unfortunately, the machine I'm on haven't fixed up their sendmail to prevent spamming, so I cannot sent to the TOPS-20 list right now. Perhaps you can relay this. ADVENT and ZORK are two different programs. ADVENT was written in FORTRAN from the start, running on different PDP-10s. Don't know if any one OS was the target. ZORK was written in MDL at MIT, and later translated to FORTRAN by someone at DEC. The MDL version is the one you run on TOPS-20 (and ITS amd T10 I assume), while the FORTRAN version ran on PDP-11s and VAXen. Furthermore, ADVENT appearantly spread from person to person, never officially distributed. For more information about ADVENT, the source code, and just about anything else, see: http://people.delphi.com/rickadams/adventure/e_downloads.html For a bit of information about ZORK (Called DUNGEON in the "original" FORTRAN version) see: http://www.csd.uwo.ca/Infocom/ Johnny Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt@update.uu.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol 17-May-2000 12:16:50 -0700,1203;000000000000 Return-Path: <Ed.Falk@Eng.Sun.COM> Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for t20arc; Wed, 17 May 2000 12:16:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: from engmail3.Eng.Sun.COM ([129.144.170.5]) by lukla.Sun.COM (8.9.3+Sun/8.9.3) with ESMTP id NAA00414 for <TOPS-20@panda.com>; Wed, 17 May 2000 13:16:32 -0600 (MDT) Received: from peregrine.eng.sun.com (peregrine.Eng.Sun.COM [129.146.45.138]) by engmail3.Eng.Sun.COM (8.9.3+Sun/8.9.3/ENSMAIL,v1.7) with ESMTP id MAA27005 for <TOPS-20@panda.com>; Wed, 17 May 2000 12:16:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from falk@localhost) by peregrine.eng.sun.com (8.9.1b+Sun/8.9.1) id MAA03646 for TOPS-20@panda.com; Wed, 17 May 2000 12:16:55 -0700 (PDT) Date: Wed, 17 May 2000 12:16:55 -0700 (PDT) From: Ed Falk <Ed.Falk@Eng.Sun.COM> Message-Id: <200005171916.MAA03646@peregrine.eng.sun.com> To: TOPS-20@panda.com Subject: Re: Original Adventure game X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII > I may be misremembering something that was already ancient history by > my era, but wasn't the original Adventure/Zork written on MIT-DM, That's where I remember playing it, around 1975. I don't think it was written in MDL (wasn't that zork?). I think it was actually written in Fortran. 17-May-2000 12:57:02 -0700,2815;000000000000 Return-Path: <tpb@doctor.zk3.dec.com> Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for t20arc; Wed, 17 May 2000 12:57:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: by zmamail04.zma.compaq.com (Postfix, from userid 12345) id 85935A95; Wed, 17 May 2000 15:53:40 -0400 (EDT) Received: from oflume.zk3.dec.com (flambe.zk3.dec.com [16.140.96.19]) by zmamail04.zma.compaq.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6240D9EF; Wed, 17 May 2000 15:53:40 -0400 (EDT) Received: from doctor.zk3.dec.com by oflume.zk3.dec.com (8.8.8/1.1.22.3/03Mar00-0551AM) id PAA0000014360; Wed, 17 May 2000 15:53:40 -0400 (EDT) Received: from localhost by doctor.zk3.dec.com (5.65v4.0/1.1.19.2/05Apr00-1135AM) id AA20489; Wed, 17 May 2000 15:53:39 -0400 Message-Id: <200005171953.AA20489@doctor.zk3.dec.com> To: Mark Crispin <MRC@panda.com> Cc: TOPS-20 Hackers and Yackers <TOPS-20@panda.com> Subject: Re: Seventeen years ago today In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 17 May 2000 10:22:22 PDT." <MailManager.958584142.15421.mrc@Ikkoku-Kan.Panda.COM> Date: Wed, 17 May 2000 15:53:39 -0400 From: "Dr. Tom Blinn, 603-884-0646" <tpb@doctor.zk3.dec.com> X-Mts: smtp > Image being able to write code without having to worry about one UNIX kernel > design bug or another... Yes, but you'd still have to worry about TOPS-10 or TOPS-20 kernel design bugs.. No software (none, ever) is design flaw free or bug free. Not that I would not have preferred things to have been different; there were a LOT of good things in TOPS systems (both 10s and 20s) that really got lost as a side effect of Digital's failed engineering projects (since when you come down to it, the decision to kill the product line was due in some part to the failure of the Jupiter project, not to a lack of real alternatives from other suppliers). Of course, big egos got bruised and people did stupid things (but then, people do stupid things..). Tom Dr. Thomas P. Blinn + UNIX Software Group + Compaq Computer Corporation 110 Spit Brook Road, MS ZKO3-2/W17 Nashua, New Hampshire 03062-2698 Technology Partnership Engineering Phone: (603) 884-0646 Internet: tpb@zk3.dec.com Compaq's Easynet: alpha::tpb ACM Member: tpblinn@acm.org PC@Home: tom@felines.mv.net Worry kills more people than work because more people worry than work. Keep your stick on the ice. -- Steve Smith ("Red Green") My favorite palindrome is: Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas. -- Phil Agre, pagre@alpha.oac.ucla.edu Yesterday it worked / Today it is not working / UNIX is like that -- apologies to Margaret Segall Opinions expressed herein are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer or anyone else, living or dead, real or imagined. 17-May-2000 13:37:19 -0700,1372;000000000000 Return-Path: <MRC@Panda.COM> Received: via tmail-4.1(11) (invoked by user mrc) for t20arc; Wed, 17 May 2000 13:37:19 -0700 (PDT) Date: Wed, 17 May 2000 13:03:03 -0700 (PDT) From: Mark Crispin <MRC@Panda.COM> Sender: Mark Crispin <mrc@Ikkoku-Kan.Panda.COM> Subject: Re: Seventeen years ago today To: "Dr. Tom Blinn, 603-884-0646" <tpb@doctor.zk3.dec.com> cc: TOPS-20 Hackers and Yackers <TOPS-20@panda.com> In-Reply-To: <200005171953.AA20489@doctor.zk3.dec.com> Message-ID: <MailManager.958593783.15421.mrc@Ikkoku-Kan.Panda.COM> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII On Wed, 17 May 2000 15:53:39 -0400, Dr. Tom Blinn, 603-884-0646 wrote: > Yes, but you'd still have to worry about TOPS-10 or TOPS-20 kernel design > bugs.. No software (none, ever) is design flaw free or bug free. True; the EXEC needed a complete rewrite, and the implementation of TCP/IP was a disaster. > when you come down to it, the decision to kill the product line was due > in some part to the failure of the Jupiter project True enough. That project was almost doomed from the start. However, the seeds of failure were sown in the late 1970s. The internal bickering between the 10 and 20 teams was massively destructive. The TOPS-20 guys were right that TOPS-10 should be retired, but they should have brought Jim and Tony on board... 17-May-2000 13:49:38 -0700,1634;000000000000 Return-Path: <ccx004@coventry.ac.uk> Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for t20arc; Wed, 17 May 2000 13:49:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from leofric.coventry.ac.uk (root@leofric.coventry.ac.uk [193.61.107.33]) by Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU; Wed, 17 May 2000 13:49:05 PDT Received: (from ccx004@localhost) by leofric.coventry.ac.uk (8.8.6/8.6.11) id VAA10811; Wed, 17 May 2000 21:46:30 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 17 May 2000 21:46:30 +0100 (BST) From: Colin Bruce <ccx004@coventry.ac.uk> X-Sender: ccx004@leofric To: TOPS-20@panda.com Subject: Re: Original Adventure game In-Reply-To: <200005171916.MAA03646@peregrine.eng.sun.com> Message-ID: <Pine.OSF.3.91.1000517214248.6113B-100000@leofric> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Wed, 17 May 2000, Ed Falk wrote: > > I may be misremembering something that was already ancient history by > > my era, but wasn't the original Adventure/Zork written on MIT-DM, > > That's where I remember playing it, around 1975. I don't think > it was written in MDL (wasn't that zork?). I think it was actually > written in Fortran. Dear All, Not exactly the topic but related in a way. Does anyone know of a source for a game called MUD. It was written in Bliss (if I remember correctly) on a DECsystem-10 (oh god I can't remember the capitalisation anymore) at Essex university in the UK. I would so love to get the sources even if they couldn't be run. It would just be nice to read once again the introduction even ("You are stood on a road between the land and the place from whence you came...."). Thanks for the memories. Colin Bruce 17-May-2000 13:55:07 -0700,2391;000000000000 Return-Path: <tpb@doctor.zk3.dec.com> Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for t20arc; Wed, 17 May 2000 13:55:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: by zmamail05.zma.compaq.com (Postfix, from userid 12345) id DF04B390F; Wed, 17 May 2000 16:51:46 -0400 (EDT) Received: from yquarry.zk3.dec.com (oquarry.zk3.dec.com [16.140.112.6]) by zmamail05.zma.compaq.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id C60293A63; Wed, 17 May 2000 16:51:46 -0400 (EDT) Received: from doctor.zk3.dec.com by yquarry.zk3.dec.com (8.8.8/1.1.22.3/11Mar00-0650AM) id QAA0000017813; Wed, 17 May 2000 16:51:46 -0400 (EDT) Received: from localhost by doctor.zk3.dec.com (5.65v4.0/1.1.19.2/05Apr00-1135AM) id AA30686; Wed, 17 May 2000 16:51:46 -0400 Message-Id: <200005172051.AA30686@doctor.zk3.dec.com> To: Mark Crispin <MRC@panda.com> Cc: TOPS-20 Hackers and Yackers <TOPS-20@panda.com> Subject: Re: Seventeen years ago today In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 17 May 2000 13:03:03 PDT." <MailManager.958593783.15421.mrc@Ikkoku-Kan.Panda.COM> Date: Wed, 17 May 2000 16:51:46 -0400 From: "Dr. Tom Blinn, 603-884-0646" <tpb@doctor.zk3.dec.com> X-Mts: smtp > The internal bickering between the 10 and 20 teams was massively destructive. > The TOPS-20 guys were right that TOPS-10 should be retired, but they should > have brought Jim and Tony on board... Yes, that was a real problem. People doing people things.. Big egos.. Not necessarily without justification, but none the less.. Tom Dr. Thomas P. Blinn + UNIX Software Group + Compaq Computer Corporation 110 Spit Brook Road, MS ZKO3-2/W17 Nashua, New Hampshire 03062-2698 Technology Partnership Engineering Phone: (603) 884-0646 Internet: tpb@zk3.dec.com Compaq's Easynet: alpha::tpb ACM Member: tpblinn@acm.org PC@Home: tom@felines.mv.net Worry kills more people than work because more people worry than work. Keep your stick on the ice. -- Steve Smith ("Red Green") My favorite palindrome is: Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas. -- Phil Agre, pagre@alpha.oac.ucla.edu Yesterday it worked / Today it is not working / UNIX is like that -- apologies to Margaret Segall Opinions expressed herein are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer or anyone else, living or dead, real or imagined. 17-May-2000 14:34:23 -0700,1561;000000000000 Return-Path: <pd@sics.se> Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for t20arc; Wed, 17 May 2000 14:34:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: from color.sics.se (color.sics.se [193.10.66.199]) by Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU; Wed, 17 May 2000 14:33:41 PDT Received: from merkurius.sics.se (titan.sics.se [193.10.66.218]) by color.sics.se (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id XAA01152; Wed, 17 May 2000 23:32:36 +0200 (MET DST) env-from (pd@merkurius.sics.se) Message-Id: <200005172132.XAA01152@color.sics.se> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0.2 To: TOPS-20@panda.com cc: pd@color.sics.se Subject: Re: Original Adventure game In-Reply-To: Johnny Billquist <bqt@update.uu.se>'s message of "Wed, 17 May 2000 11:27:17 PDT." <Pine.VUL.3.93.1000517085108.26940E-100000@Zeke.Update.UU.SE> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Wed, 17 May 2000 23:32:04 +0200 From: Per Danielsson <pd@sics.se> Johnny Billquist wrote: > ZORK was written in MDL at MIT, and later translated to FORTRAN by someone > at DEC. The MDL version is the one you run on TOPS-20 (and ITS amd T10 I > assume), AFAIK there was no version of ZORK for Tops-10. I don't think MDL was ported to T10. However: A friend and I wrote a "TOPS-20-simulator" for Tops-10 which simulated enough JSYSes to enable ZORK.EXE for T20 to run on T10. Quite a nice hack. PD -- Per Danielsson pd@sics.se Swedish Institute of Computer Science, PO Box 1263, SE-164 29 KISTA, SWEDEN N59.24.20, E17.56.53 "Why not? Yeah." 17-May-2000 15:15:34 -0700,1901;000000000000 Return-Path: <eric@brouhaha.com> Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for t20arc; Wed, 17 May 2000 15:15:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: from brouhaha.com (ruckus.brouhaha.com [209.185.79.17]) by Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU; Wed, 17 May 2000 15:14:59 PDT Received: (qmail 10714 invoked by uid 342); 17 May 2000 22:10:37 -0000 Date: 17 May 2000 22:10:37 -0000 Message-ID: <20000517221037.10713.qmail@brouhaha.com> From: Eric Smith <eric@brouhaha.com> To: TOPS-20@panda.com In-reply-to: <MailManager.958593783.15421.mrc@Ikkoku-Kan.Panda.COM> (message from Mark Crispin on Wed, 17 May 2000 13:03:03 -0700 (PDT)) Subject: Re: Seventeen years ago today References: <MailManager.958593783.15421.mrc@Ikkoku-Kan.Panda.COM> Mark Crispin <MRC@Panda.COM> wrote: > The TOPS-20 guys were right that TOPS-10 should be retired, [foolishly taking the flame bait...] If technical merit was the only criterion, I suppose you might have been able to make a case for that. However, when other factors are considered, it becomes clear that such a decision isn't simply "right". The TOPS-20 folks wanted TOPS-10 retired *despite* the fact that customers still wanted it supported, and they were still selling systems to run TOPS-10. The customer is always right, even when he (or she) is wrong. Trying to kill a product that customers still want, even if you're trying to migrate them to another product, is suicidal. The reality was that TOPS-20 was NOT as good at supporting some workloads as TOPS-10 was. It almost certainly could have been improved until it was, but even so, forcing customer migration would simply have lost a lot of customers. Even though migrating from TOPS-10 to TOPS-20 would obviously be much easier than migrating from either of those to VAX/VMS. DEC didn't learn the lesson until after they did the latter. And it's not clear that they even learned it then. 17-May-2000 15:28:02 -0700,2215;000000000000 Return-Path: <MRC@Panda.COM> Received: via tmail-4.1(11) (invoked by user mrc) for t20arc; Wed, 17 May 2000 15:28:02 -0700 (PDT) Date: Wed, 17 May 2000 15:16:44 -0700 (PDT) From: Mark Crispin <MRC@Panda.COM> Sender: Mark Crispin <mrc@Ikkoku-Kan.Panda.COM> Subject: Re: Seventeen years ago today To: Eric Smith <eric@brouhaha.com> cc: TOPS-20 Hackers and Yackers <TOPS-20@Panda.COM> In-Reply-To: <20000517221037.10713.qmail@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <MailManager.958601804.15421.mrc@Ikkoku-Kan.Panda.COM> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII On 17 May 2000 22:10:37 -0000, Eric Smith wrote: > The TOPS-20 folks wanted TOPS-10 retired *despite* the fact that > customers still wanted it supported, and they were still selling systems > to run TOPS-10. The problem was that there was no serious attempt to make TOPS-20 be an acceptable substitute for these customers. This was a case in which the Not Invented Here disease in the TOPS-20 group ultimately proved destructive. > The customer is always right, even when he (or she) is > wrong. Trying to kill a product that customers still want, even if > you're trying to migrate them to another product, is suicidal. Exactly correct! That's why many TOPS-20 sites rejected VAX, and with it DEC, after 1984. > The reality was that TOPS-20 was NOT as good at supporting some > workloads as TOPS-10 was. My understanding was that Jim and Tony actually offered to do something about that, and they were told in effect to jump in the mill pond. > It almost certainly could have been improved > until it was, but even so, forcing customer migration would simply have > lost a lot of customers. Of course there should not have been a forced migration. TOPS-20 should have been TOPS-10 v8.0; in every way a superior and logical upgrade. There were a few half-hearted attempts in that area, e.g. the TOPS-10 shell and the abortive TOPS-36 project. But these missed the whole point. It didn't matter whether you used uuos or jsi, or whether the prompt was a dot or an atsign. What mattered was SMP, the heavy-duty workload that TOPS-10 could handle, and the devices that TOPS-10 supported. 17-May-2000 15:31:18 -0700,1236;000000000000 Return-Path: <AMartin@MA.UltraNet.Com> Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for t20arc; Wed, 17 May 2000 15:31:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: from MA.UltraNet.Com (sailfish.etnus.com [204.164.68.163]) by service0.etnus.com (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id SAA15513; Wed, 17 May 2000 18:24:06 -0400 (EDT) Sender: amartin@etnus.com Message-ID: <39231C05.A0BBD06C@MA.UltraNet.Com> Date: Wed, 17 May 2000 18:24:05 -0400 From: "Alan H. Martin" <AMartin@MA.UltraNet.Com> X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.73 [en] (X11; U; OSF1 V4.0 alpha) X-Accept-Language: en, en-US, en-GB, es MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Per Danielsson <pd@sics.se> CC: TOPS-20@panda.com, pd@color.sics.se Subject: Re: Original Adventure game References: <200005172132.XAA01152@color.sics.se> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Per Danielsson wrote: ... > However: A friend and I wrote a "TOPS-20-simulator" for Tops-10 which > simulated enough JSYSes to enable ZORK.EXE for T20 to run on T10. Quite > a nice hack. Yeah, Stu Grossman did the same thing at Stevens Institute around 1980. (Probably helped inspire his later PDP-10 simulator, indirectly). /AHM -- Alan Howard Martin AMartin@MA.UltraNet.Com 17-May-2000 16:22:04 -0700,1902;000000000000 Return-Path: <Stephane.Tsacas@curie.fr> Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for t20arc; Wed, 17 May 2000 16:22:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mailhost.curie.fr (burton.curie.fr [193.49.205.23]) by Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU; Wed, 17 May 2000 16:21:06 PDT Received: from manya.curie.fr (manya.curie.fr [193.49.205.22]) by mailhost.curie.fr (8.9.3/jtpda-5.3.3) with ESMTP id BAA09099 ; Thu, 18 May 2000 01:15:45 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from (slt@localhost) by manya.curie.fr (8.9.3/jtpda-5.3.3) id BAA13971 ; Thu, 18 May 2000 01:15:34 +0200 (MET DST) Date: Thu, 18 May 2000 01:15:34 +0200 (MET DST) Message-Id: <200005172315.BAA13971@manya.curie.fr> X-Authentication-Warning: manya.curie.fr: slt set sender to slt@manya.curie.fr using -f From: Stephane Tsacas <Stephane.Tsacas@curie.fr> To: MRC@panda.com CC: eric@brouhaha.com, TOPS-20@panda.com In-reply-to: <MailManager.958601804.15421.mrc@Ikkoku-Kan.Panda.COM> (message from Mark Crispin on Wed, 17 May 2000 15:16:44 -0700 (PDT)) Subject: Re: Seventeen years ago today References: <MailManager.958601804.15421.mrc@Ikkoku-Kan.Panda.COM> Date: Wed, 17 May 2000 15:16:44 -0700 (PDT) From: Mark Crispin <MRC@Panda.COM> Sender: Mark Crispin <mrc@Ikkoku-Kan.Panda.COM> [...] There were a few half-hearted attempts in that area, e.g. the TOPS-10 shell and the abortive TOPS-36 project. But these missed the whole point. [...] Mark, can you tell us (me?) more about the TOPS-36 project please ? Never heard of it. , Stephane [ex user of the DEC2060 of the CMIRH/Paris/France in 82, I saw you there I think ] -- Stephane.Tsacas Stephane Tsacas, Institut Curie @curie.fr 11 rue Pierre et Marie Curie http://www.curie.fr 75005 Paris, France PUSHJ P, POPJ P recursively +33 (0)1 42 34 6501 / 6758 (Fax) 17-May-2000 23:56:29 -0700,2763;000000000000 Return-Path: <victor@csd.uu.se> Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for t20arc; Wed, 17 May 2000 23:56:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from meryl.it.uu.se (root@meryl.it.uu.se [130.238.12.42]) by Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU; Wed, 17 May 2000 23:55:27 PDT Received: from Djilar.DoCS.UU.SE (victor@Djilar.DoCS.UU.SE [130.238.8.123]) by meryl.it.uu.se (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id IAA18718; Thu, 18 May 2000 08:47:47 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (victor@localhost) by Djilar.DoCS.UU.SE (8.6.12/8.6.12) id IAA29987; Thu, 18 May 2000 08:47:47 +0200 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <14627.37395.299999.152541@Djilar.DoCS.UU.SE> Date: Thu, 18 May 2000 08:47:47 +0200 (MET DST) From: Bjorn Victor <Bjorn.Victor@DoCS.UU.SE> To: Colin Bruce <ccx004@coventry.ac.uk> Cc: TOPS-20@panda.com Subject: Re: Original Adventure game In-Reply-To: <Pine.OSF.3.91.1000517214248.6113B-100000@leofric> References: <200005171916.MAA03646@peregrine.eng.sun.com> <Pine.OSF.3.91.1000517214248.6113B-100000@leofric> X-Mailer: VM 6.72 under 21.1 (patch 6) "Big Bend" XEmacs Lucid On Wed, 17 May 2000, Colin Bruce wrote: > Dear All, > > Not exactly the topic but related in a way. Does anyone know of a source > for a game called MUD. It was written in Bliss (if I remember correctly) > on a DECsystem-10 (oh god I can't remember the capitalisation anymore) > at Essex university in the UK. I would so love to get the sources even > if they couldn't be run. It would just be nice to read once again the > introduction even ("You are stood on a road between the land and the > place from whence you came...."). Narrow road between lands. You are stood on a narrow road between The Land and whence you came. To the north and south are the small foothills of a pair of majestic mountains, with a large wall running round. To the west the road continues, where in the distance you can see a thatched cottage opposite an ancient cemetery. The way out is to the east, where a shroud of mist covers the secret pass by which you entered The Land. *A playful rabbit snuffles round your feet. * MUD was written i BCPL at Essex; I later "ported" it to TOPS-20 by adding a startup program which patched PA1050 and MUD itself at appropriate places. Much much later, but still a long while ago, I and a colleague Wizard started porting it (the MUD world) to the "lpmud" system for networked MUDs. I don't know where that code ended up, but I still have the original MUD running on my TOPS-20 system. Aaah, memories... *kill rabbit The bunny kicks a little, but its resistance is futile as you bash its brains in. :-o -- Bjorn 19-May-2000 20:16:23 -0700,472;000000000000 Return-Path: <phil@ultimate.com> Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for t20arc; Fri, 19 May 2000 20:16:22 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from phil@localhost) by ultimate.com (8.9.1/8.9.1) id XAA21298 Fri, 19 May 2000 23:14:55 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 19 May 2000 23:14:55 -0400 (EDT) From: Phil Budne <phil@ultimate.com> Message-Id: <200005200314.XAA21298@ultimate.com> To: tops-20@panda.com Subject: Good use for a VAX http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~vance/www/vaxbar.html 21-May-2000 10:42:32 -0700,910;000000000000 Return-Path: <mrc@Panda.COM> Received: via tmail-4.1(11) (invoked by user mrc) for t20arc; Sun, 21 May 2000 10:42:32 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <200005211742.KAA10674@Ikkoku-Kan.Panda.COM> Date: Sat, 20 May 2000 13:52:48 -0400 From: "Alan H. Martin" <AMartin@MA.UltraNet.Com> To: Phil Budne <phil@ultimate.com> CC: tops-20@panda.com Subject: Re: Good use for a VAX References: <200005200314.XAA21298@ultimate.com> ReSent-Date: Sun, 21 May 2000 10:42:22 -0700 (PDT) ReSent-From: Mark Crispin <mrc@Panda.COM> ReSent-To: TOPS-20 Hackers and Yackers <TOPS-20@Panda.COM> ReSent-Subject: Re: Good use for a VAX ReSent-Message-ID: <Pine.NXT.4.21.0005211042220.10670@Ikkoku-Kan.Panda.COM> Phil Budne wrote: > > http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~vance/www/vaxbar.html Compare and contrast: http://www.networkcomputing.com/822/822f35.html /AHM -- Alan Howard Martin AMartin@MA.UltraNet.Com 21-May-2000 11:23:37 -0700,4320;000000000000 Return-Path: <dlm@opost.com> Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for t20arc; Sun, 21 May 2000 11:23:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mercury.mv.net (root@mercury.mv.net [199.125.85.40]) by Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU; Sun, 21 May 2000 11:21:39 PDT Received: from opost.com (opost.com [207.22.41.2]) by mercury.mv.net (8.8.8/mem-971025) with ESMTP id OAA23197 for <TOPS-20@Panda.COM>; Sun, 21 May 2000 14:21:02 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from dlm@localhost) by opost.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) id OAA23715 for TOPS-20@Panda.COM; Sun, 21 May 2000 14:20:47 -0400 Date: Sun, 21 May 2000 14:20:47 -0400 Message-Id: <200005211820.OAA23715@opost.com> From: Dan Murphy <dlm@opost.com> To: TOPS-20@panda.com Subject: Re: Seventeen years ago today Reply-To: Dan Murphy <dlm@opost.com> Mark Crispin <MRC@Panda.COM> on Wed, 17 May 2000 15:16:44 -0700 (PDT) writes: > On 17 May 2000 22:10:37 -0000, Eric Smith wrote: > > The TOPS-20 folks wanted TOPS-10 retired *despite* the fact that > > customers still wanted it supported, and they were still selling systems > > to run TOPS-10. > The problem was that there was no serious attempt to make TOPS-20 be an > acceptable substitute for these customers. This was a case in which the Not > Invented Here disease in the TOPS-20 group ultimately proved destructive. 'Course, I had this debate innumerable times back then, but, being an engineer, I firmly belive that *management* was responsible for most of these brain-damanged decisions. Yes, there was some rivalry between the engineering groups, but ultimately, we could have cooperated to build one even better OS if management hadn't prohibited it. Case in point: SMP. TOPS-10 had it, big customers clearly liked it and wanted it, but the TOPS-20 engineers were *forbidden* to do it by management! The work was mostly done. TENEX had been designed from day 1 with SMP in mind, and it was running SMP on KI-10's at Stanford before the first real DECSYSTEM-20 even shipped. Nonetheless, the external memory KL-10 configurations needed for SMP were declared by management to be DECSystem-10 only. There were lots of other things like that. Basically, once management got burned by thinking they could switch everyone from TOPS-10 to TOPS-20 on day one, they just bought into the two-system forever strategy and never tried to come up with a practical plan for convergence. Thus, over the years, lots of things had to get done twice, everything cost more than it should have, and neither operating system became as good or as competitive as it should have been. > My understanding was that Jim and Tony actually offered to do something about > that, and they were told in effect to jump in the mill pond. That's about right. Again, once management bought into the two-system strategy, the plans continued to force differences between the systems, even when they were unnecessary and cost extra to do. Management continued to create artifical differences by mandating certain hardware as 10-only and other hardware as 20-only. > There were a few half-hearted attempts in that area, e.g. the TOPS-10 shell > and the abortive TOPS-36 project. But these missed the whole point. It > didn't matter whether you used uuos or jsi, or whether the prompt was a dot or > an atsign. What mattered was SMP, the heavy-duty workload that TOPS-10 could > handle, and the devices that TOPS-10 supported. Agreed. And as with SMP, management continued to reinforce these differences over the life of the products. I agree with Mark that the 36-bit cancellation was evidence of the disease that soon killed the company. I say 'soon' because DEC peaked in 1987, only about four years later. From then on, it was downhill to oblivion. From then on, revenues were flat and the stock price declined to as low as 10% of its 1987 high. It never recovered more than about 1/3. In the mid-80s, DEC squandered unbelievable amounts of money on projects and then cancelled them. The company never again seemed able to figure out how to do the right thing at the right time. dlm 26-May-2000 18:01:51 -0700,3247;000000000000 Return-Path: <carl@1unique.com> Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for t20arc; Fri, 26 May 2000 18:01:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: by hustle.rahul.net id AA02294 (5.67b8/IDA-1.5 for TOPS-20@panda.com); Fri, 26 May 2000 03:06:43 -0700 X-Uucp-From: carl@1unique.com Wed, 15 Oct 97 21:54:44 PDT Fri, 26 May 00 01:20:10 PDT remote from udwarf Received: by garage.1unique.com (uA-1.6v2); Fri, 26 May 00 02:32:02 PDT Received: by udwarf.reststop.com (uA-1.6v2); Fri, 26 May 00 01:20:10 PDT From: carl@1unique.com (Carl Baltrunas & Cherie Marinelli 1.6v2) To: TOPS-20@panda.com Subject: Re: Original Adventure game Date: Fri, 26 May 00 01:20:10 PDT Cc: pd@color.sics.se, pd@sics.se Organization: Catalyst Industries Reply-To: carl@reststop.com Message-Id: <D2150039.l70eaf@udwarf.reststop.com> X-Mailer: uAccess - Macintosh Release: 1.6v2 Sheesh... how quickly we forget. ;-) If my memory serves me right, the original ADVENT came from stanford's WAITS system and was indeed written in FORTRAN. I probably have a copy of the source and binary (albeit probably unreadable) on tape with my files from Catholic University which is where I first played it. Also, there was a ZORK version that ran under TOPS-10. I played several versions on MIT-DM while zork was under development and I recall the number of possible points changing as I played.. a 448 point version is the lowest I can recall. With some effort I can probably remember which things were added last ;-) The TOPS-10 runable version had 560 or so points, I think. I'm pretty sure it did not include the 3 spheres that you could use to look into and view one of the other 2 rooms containing spheres, each worth 15 points. And, of course, the last 616th point wasn't either. Send for free information! I have (or know where it is, anyway) a 9-track tape with the TOPS-10 version of zork or dungeon on it. Anyone want to try and read a 20+ year old tape ;-) -Carl If I get a chance, I'll try to find my tapes and see if I can load the TOPS-10 version on my TOPS-20 system and see what the details are <g>! In Regards to your letter <200005172132.XAA01152@color.sics.se>: : Johnny Billquist wrote: : > ZORK was written in MDL at MIT, and later translated to FORTRAN by someone : > at DEC. The MDL version is the one you run on TOPS-20 (and ITS amd T10 I : > assume), : : AFAIK there was no version of ZORK for Tops-10. I don't think MDL was ported : to T10. : However: A friend and I wrote a "TOPS-20-simulator" for Tops-10 which : simulated enough JSYSes to enable ZORK.EXE for T20 to run on T10. Quite : a nice hack. : : PD : -- : Per Danielsson pd@sics.se : Swedish Institute of Computer Science, PO Box 1263, SE-164 29 KISTA, SWEDEN : N59.24.20, E17.56.53 "Why not? Yeah." : : Carl A Baltrunas <carl@reststop.com> and Cherie Marinelli <2bunnies@1unique.com> Catalyst Industries: The One-Stop Internet registration and distribution service URL: <http://www.reststop.com> INFO: info@1unique.com -owned by EWBR & EWBR-ette [our house bunnies] and Czazu [our dog] Visit them at their hotel at http://www.reststop.com/info/bunny/bunnycam.html 27-May-2000 14:14:01 -0700,989;000000000000 Return-Path: <ALDERSON@mathom.xkl.com> Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for t20arc; Sat, 27 May 2000 14:14:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mathom.xkl.com (mathom.xkl.com [192.94.202.106]) by Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU; Sat, 27 May 2000 14:13:43 PDT Date: Sat, 27 May 2000 14:13:55 -0700 From: Rich Alderson <ALDERSON@mathom.xkl.com> Subject: Re: Original Adventure game To: TOPS-20@panda.com In-Reply-To: <D2150039.l70eaf@udwarf.reststop.com> Message-ID: <13550717412.12.ALDERSON@mathom.xkl.com> Carl Baltrunas wrote: > If my memory serves me right, the original ADVENT came from stanford's WAITS > system and was indeed written in FORTRAN. The *original* ADVENT was written in CDC FORTRAN IV by Will Crowther. The *well-known* version was ported to WAITS by Don Woods of SAIL; this was the basis of the UChicago (David Long) version, which added the outdoor portions of the map, and the second entrance to the cave (and 151 points). Rich Alderson ------- 02-Jun-2000 19:05:02 -0700,2418;000000000000 Return-Path: <jms@tardis.tymnet.com> Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for t20arc; Fri, 2 Jun 2000 19:05:02 -0700 (PDT) Received: by tymix.Tymnet.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA03828; Fri, 2 Jun 2000 19:02:44 PDT Received: from tardis by Tymnet.COM (in.smtpd); 2 Jun 100 19:02:43 PDT Received: (from jms@localhost) by tardis.tymnet.com (8.8.8+Sun/8.8.8) id TAA03419; Fri, 2 Jun 2000 19:02:42 -0700 (PDT) Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2000 19:02:42 -0700 From: Joe Smith <Joe.Smith@wcom.com> To: Eric Smith <eric@brouhaha.com>, tops-20@panda.com Cc: Al Kossow <aek@spies.com>, Joe Smith <Joe.Smith@wcom.com>, Carl Baltrunas <carl@reststop.com> Subject: Re: [DSEAGRAV@toad.xkl.com: Can someome explain how arithmetic works?] Message-Id: <20000602190242.I24631@tardis.Tymnet.COM> References: <20000602222618.20806.qmail@brouhaha.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 1.0i In-Reply-To: <20000602222618.20806.qmail@brouhaha.com>; from eric@brouhaha.com on Fri, Jun 02, 2000 at 10:26:18PM +0000 On Fri, Jun 02, 2000 at 10:26:18PM +0000, Eric Smith wrote: > ------- Start of forwarded message ------- > X-Coding-System: undecided-unix > Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2000 05:52:12 -0700 > From: "Daniel A. Seagraves" <DSEAGRAV@toad.xkl.com> > Subject: Can someome explain how arithmetic works? > To: classiccmp@classiccmp.org > Sender: owner-classiccmp@classiccmp.org > Reply-To: classiccmp@classiccmp.org > > Need this for my emulator, and nobody can explain to me how it works, and > I can't find any documentation that's useful to me. Specifically, I need stuff > like "you shift left and then check the last bit" etc. etc. Basically, I have > a bunch of ones and zeroes and I have to know how to add/subtract/multiply/ > divide with them. > ------- End of forwarded message ------- I posted a followup to his newsgroup article: Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10 From: Daniel Seagraves <root@bony.umtec.com> Date: Tue, 30 May 2000 12:30:13 -0500 Re: Daniel Seagrave's e10 Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.10.10005301229490.13504-100000@bony.umtec.com> -Joe -- Joe Smith MCI WorldCom, On-Net Design/Impl, Product Technical Support UNIX and Tech Sup: TYMNET Network, Xstream Packet Services (Public X.25) <Joe.Smith@wcom.com> 2560 N 1st St, MS-5046/746, San Jose, CA 95131 Voice: 408-533-6220 = vnet 854-6220 Fax: 408-533-6702 = vnet 854-6702 24-Aug-2000 14:11:49 -0700,6791;000000000000 Return-Path: <dlm@p6.opost.com> Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for t20arc; Thu, 24 Aug 2000 14:11:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mercury.mv.net (root@mercury.mv.net [199.125.85.40]) by Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU; Thu, 24 Aug 2000 14:08:23 PDT Received: from ns.opost.com (root@ns.opost.com [207.22.41.1]) by mercury.mv.net (8.8.8/mem-971025) with ESMTP id RAA27152 for <TOPS-20@Panda.COM>; Thu, 24 Aug 2000 17:07:48 -0400 (EDT) Received: from p6.opost.com (root@p6.opost.com [207.22.41.4]) by ns.opost.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id RAA23138 for <TOPS-20@Panda.COM>; Thu, 24 Aug 2000 17:07:46 -0400 Received: (from dlm@localhost) by p6.opost.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) id RAA06916 for TOPS-20@Panda.COM; Thu, 24 Aug 2000 17:07:45 -0400 Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 17:07:45 -0400 Message-Id: <200008242107.RAA06916@p6.opost.com> From: Dan Murphy <dlm@opost.com> To: TOPS-20@panda.com Subject: The Last VAX Reply-To: Dan Murphy <dlm@opost.com> from the Houston Chronicle 8/22/2000 Compaq to scrap Digital's long-lived VAX computer line By DWIGHT SILVERMAN Copyright 2000 Houston Chronicle In the market for a VAX, the near-legendary minicomputer that Digital Equipment Corp. designed and marketed for over 20 years? Better move fast, shoppers. Compaq Computer Corp., which acquired the VAX when it bought Digital in 1998, is putting the venerable line to rest. Compaq will stop taking orders for VAX systems at the end of September, and will stop shipping them by the end of the year. The machine that is considered to have given birth to the concept of client-server computing -- in which smaller, full-powered computers are networked to larger, central ones -- has been made obsolete by cheaper, more muscular products. The VAX was the computer that kept Digital soaring during its glory years -- but the company's dogged adherence to it helped usher in Digital's decline. There are an estimated 100,000 VAX computers still operating in the world. "Why are they still there? Because they still work," said Terry Shannon, who followed Digital for years with his Shannon Knows Digital trade newsletter. He has renamed his publication Shannon Knows Compaq. "The people still running VAX systems don't need or don't want Unix or Windows," Shannon said. "It's a classic example of `If it ain't broke, don't fix it.' " VAX, which stands for Virtual Address eXtension, was unveiled in 1977. It was designed in conjunction with its operating system, VMS, or Virtual Memory System. The operating system has since been renamed OpenVMS. The VAX was one of the first computers to process information in 32-bit chunks. Previous computers, including Digital's popular PDP line, were 16-bit computers. VAX also was compact for its time, a breakthrough in corporate computers. "The original VAX 11/780, which was introduced in 1977, was a double-cabinet computer," said Mary Ellen Fortier, Compaq's vice president of OpenVMS marketing. "It was about the size of two really good-sized refrigerators, which was very small. It was revolutionary." Over the years, the size of VAX systems shrunk while its power increased. There are now desktop-sized VAXes and some that are 50 times more powerful than the first 11/780. Digital focused almost exclusively on the VAX during the 1980s. In the process, it pioneered several computing practices popular today. They include clustering -- linking machines together so that if one fails, the others pick up the slack -- and building networks using Ethernet, the standard now used for linking most corporate and home systems. "This line of systems was quite successful, and even up through 1996 was producing over $100 million in annual revenue for Digital," said Jeffrey Hewitt, a senior analyst with Gartner Dataquest, a market research firm. "Digital had incredible success with the VAX -- they sold billions of dollars worth," newsletter editor Shannon said. "They probably sold half a million VAX 2s alone." But analysts say Digital's staying with the VAX during the shift to personal computers was partly responsible for the company's problems in the 1990s. "Sticking with the VAX, and keeping its 100-percent allegiance as long as Digital did, was one of the reasons behind the company's decline," Shannon said. Indeed, the VAX's capabilities long have been surpassed by other computer types, including the PC. "There is a company that sells a VAX and OpenVMS emulator that runs on Windows NT or Linux," Shannon said. "If you have a 500-megahertz Pentium III computer, you can run circles around the average VAX workstation." Although the VAX and OpenVMS were designed to avoid obsolescence -- early Digital design documents indicate the platform was supposed to last 15 to 20 years -- Digital began planning for its successor in the mid-1980s. The Alpha processor, a high-speed computer chip designed for use in desktop and server computers, was created specifically to replace the VAX design, said Compaq's Fortier. In fact, Digital designed its Alpha systems to run OpenVMS as well as other operating systems. They can also be clustered together, so that VAXes work in tandem with Alpha computers. Fortier estimated that there are 450,000 computers running the OpenVMS operating system, and between 20-25 percent of them are VAX. The demise of the VAX is not a surprise. As early as 1997, Digital said it planned to phase it out this year. Compaq repeated that pledge shortly after acquiring Digital. Even thought they had warning, the end of the VAX will put customers like Cliff Pedersen in a bind. Pedersen, manager of information technology at Sunoco of Canada, said he now has to make a decision about replacing his last VAX computer. "It does affect us -- now we have to figure out what we want to do," Pedersen said. At one point, Sunoco had 20 VAX systems, most of which have been replaced by Alpha computers. The lone VAX runs a Honeywell process control system, and even it is bolstered with another Alpha server. Pedersen said he used VAX systems because they were so reliable. "We ran those machines for years without rebooting them," he said. "You could never run a Windows desktop for a year without rebooting it." 24-Aug-2000 15:46:26 -0700,1326;000000000000 Return-Path: <MRC@Panda.COM> Received: via tmail-4.1(11) (invoked by user mrc) for t20arc; Thu, 24 Aug 2000 15:46:26 -0700 (PDT) Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 15:29:01 -0700 (PDT) From: Mark Crispin <MRC@Panda.COM> Sender: Mark Crispin <mrc@Ikkoku-Kan.Panda.COM> Subject: re: The Last VAX To: Dan Murphy <dlm@opost.com> cc: TOPS-20@panda.com In-Reply-To: <200008242107.RAA06916@p6.opost.com> Message-ID: <MailManager.967156141.3105.mrc@Ikkoku-Kan.Panda.COM> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII It seems that the PDP-6/10 (1964-1988) outlasted the VAX (1977-2000) by one year. At least I think that 1988 was when the last new KL was delivered. I took a look at the TOPS-20 mailing list traffic. The peak years of activity were in 1982 and 1983. The list was alive and will for a few years after that, but it started dipping from 1987 to 1991. It then briefly picked up again, only to collapse in 1994. It reached a low in 1997, which all of 5K was sent the entire year. Traffic jumped by an order of magnitude the next year, and has been steadily picking up. This year already has the greatest traffic since 1993; I don't think that 1993's record will be beat but possibly it will beat 1991. We've held out pretty well. I wonder how well the VAX will be doing in 2014. 13-Oct-2000 00:20:50 -0700,1478;000000000000 Return-Path: <smj@demthu.saomai.org> Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for t20arc; Fri, 13 Oct 2000 00:20:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: from demthu.saomai.org (demthu.saomai.org [192.67.63.35]) by Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU; Fri, 13 Oct 2000 00:20:17 PDT Received: (from smj@localhost) by demthu.saomai.org (8.9.0/8.9.0) id TAA16704; Thu, 12 Oct 2000 19:16:06 -0500 (CDT) Message-Id: <200010130016.TAA16704@demthu.saomai.org> Subject: TECO and DDT. To: its-lovers@mc.lcs.mit.edu, tops-20@panda.com Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 19:16:05 -0500 (CDT) Reply-To: "Stephen Jones" <smj@SEVCOM.COM> From: "Stephen Jones" <smj@SEVCOM.COM> Organization: Severed Communications - http://SEVCOM.COM X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL54 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit 10-10-00 slipped by us, didn't it? I was going to announce this on DEC-10 day, but I couldn't really wait. Besides, we've got 10-20 day coming up soon. As some of you might know, I've got a band that does some electronic/punk sort of music. We recorded a song based on the ending of Alice's PDP-10. Its more like a commercial I suppose.. but it brings up alot of questions from fans of our music which allows me to get on my soap box on what hacking is. http://redmartian.com/tecoddt.mp3 -- Stephen Jones, Minister of Montage . Severed Communications, SEVCOM.COM Severed Heads . project codename: 'laptop' 20-Oct-2000 06:05:13 -0700,2256;000000000000 Return-Path: <tpb@doctor.zk3.dec.com> Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for t20arc; Fri, 20 Oct 2000 06:05:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: by zmamail01.zma.compaq.com (Postfix, from userid 12345) id B4B9C904E; Fri, 20 Oct 2000 09:01:51 -0400 (EDT) Received: from oflume.zk3.dec.com (bryflume.zk3.dec.com [16.141.40.17]) by zmamail01.zma.compaq.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 90B199064; Fri, 20 Oct 2000 09:01:51 -0400 (EDT) Received: from doctor.zk3.dec.com by oflume.zk3.dec.com (8.8.8/1.1.22.3/03Mar00-0551AM) id JAA0000005494; Fri, 20 Oct 2000 09:01:51 -0400 (EDT) Received: from localhost by doctor.zk3.dec.com (8.8.8/1.1.22.3/07Jun00-0914PM) id JAA0000030484; Fri, 20 Oct 2000 09:01:17 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <200010201301.JAA0000030484@doctor.zk3.dec.com> X-Authentication-Warning: doctor.zk3.dec.com: localhost [127.0.0.1] didn't use HELO protocol To: tops-20@panda.com Cc: its-lovers@mc.lcs.mit.edu Subject: Happy 10/20 day (or 20/10 day if you prefer) Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 09:01:17 -0400 From: "Dr. Tom Blinn, 603-884-0646" <tpb@doctor.zk3.dec.com> X-Mts: smtp Well, it is that time of year again, and until we get to 2010, this is as good as it gets.. A happy 10/20 day (or 20/10 for those who prefer to put the day first, in this case it hardly matters because the ambiguity is irrelevant) to all! Tom Dr. Thomas P. Blinn + UNIX Software Group + Compaq Computer Corporation 110 Spit Brook Road, MS ZKO3-2/W17 Nashua, New Hampshire 03062-2698 Technology Partnership Engineering Phone: (603) 884-0646 Internet: tpb@zk3.dec.com Compaq's Easynet: alpha::tpb ACM Member: tpblinn@acm.org PC@Home: tom@felines.mv.net Worry kills more people than work because more people worry than work. Keep your stick on the ice. -- Steve Smith ("Red Green") My favorite palindrome is: Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas. -- Phil Agre, pagre@alpha.oac.ucla.edu Yesterday it worked / Today it is not working / UNIX is like that -- apologies to Margaret Segall Opinions expressed herein are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer or anyone else, living or dead, real or imagined. 02-Nov-2000 10:06:58 -0800,1488;000000000000 Return-Path: <eric@brouhaha.com> Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for t20arc; Thu, 2 Nov 2000 10:06:58 -0800 (PST) Received: from brouhaha.com (ruckus.brouhaha.com [209.185.79.17]) by Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU; Thu, 02 Nov 2000 10:06:29 PST Received: (qmail 5828 invoked by uid 342); 2 Nov 2000 18:05:29 -0000 Date: 2 Nov 2000 18:05:29 -0000 Message-ID: <20001102180529.5827.qmail@brouhaha.com> From: Eric Smith <eric@brouhaha.com> To: tops-20@panda.com Subject: Nearly the last DECSYSTEM-20 [The following is as I posted it to UseNet. I should clarify that I think there are probably some more KS10s still running, but I only know of one KL10 still in service.] I met someone at a site that shut down their DECSYSTEM-20 within the last 60 days. Now I only know of one system still running (not counting XKL machines, which run TOPS-20 but are not DECSYSTEM-20s). The story is not much like the one recounted in "The Soul of an Old Machine." (Yes, I do mean *Old*, and it's not the book by Tracy Kidder. Do a web search.) I asked whether anyone would miss the system, and the answer was "no". In fact, the person seemed to think it was a strange question. This seems sad to me. I suppose it can be interpreted in several ways. Perhaps there are people who miss the system, but they've already moved on to other things. They've migrated their applications to Windows NT. Presumably they'll do the same with their VAX 6000 before too much longer. 09-Nov-2000 08:35:44 -0800,3071;000000000000 Return-Path: <bowman@sunshine.math.utah.edu> Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for t20arc; Thu, 9 Nov 2000 08:35:44 -0800 (PST) Received: from sunshine.math.utah.edu (&L@sunshine.math.utah.edu [128.110.198.2]) by Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU; Thu, 09 Nov 2000 08:33:30 PST Received: from brillig.math.utah.edu (brillig.math.utah.edu [128.110.198.4]) by sunshine.math.utah.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id JAA29200; Thu, 9 Nov 2000 09:25:37 -0700 (MST) Received: (from bowman@localhost) by brillig.math.utah.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) id JAA24633; Thu, 9 Nov 2000 09:25:36 -0700 (MST) Date: Thu, 9 Nov 2000 09:25:36 -0700 (MST) From: Pieter Bowman <bowman@math.utah.edu> To: tops-20@panda.com Cc: bowman@math.utah.edu, beebe@math.utah.edu, backus@math.utah.edu, djh@apfox.apfo.usda.gov X-US-Mail: "University of Utah, Department of Mathematics, 155 S 1400 E RM 233, Salt Lake City, UT 84112-0090" X-Telephone: 801-581-5252 X-Fax: 801-581-4148 Subject: 10 years Message-ID: <CMM.0.92.0.973787136.bowman@brillig.math.utah.edu> The past 10 years has gone by very quickly. Here is the last "systat" command given on science.utah.edu (a DECsystem 20/60): $sys a Fri 9-Nov-90 18:33:31 Up 2000:00:05 4+16 Jobs Load av (class 1) 0.63 1.06 0.76 No operator in attendance Job TTY Pgm St Idle Time Cl Sh Us Limit User,<Directory> Foreign host 9 316 EXEC TI 0:29:57 1 10 38 BEEBE,APS:<.PLOT79> 11*314 SYSTAT RN 4:12:36 1 10 5 OP.BOWMAN,APS:<.LABELS> 19 DET EXEC RN 0:13:00 1 10 0 OP.BACKUS 23 323 EXEC TI 1:08:53 1 10 0 BEEBE,ND20:<TEMP> 1 232 OPR TI 1:16 0:01:36 0 2 0 OPERATOR 2 233 NETSRV TI 1:13:25 0 2 0 OPERATOR 3 234 SMTJFN RN 7:08:47 0 2 0 OPERATOR 4 235 MMAILR RN 12:11:02 0 2 0 OPERATOR 5 236 SATAN TI 1:31 0:14:31 0 2 0 OPERATOR 6 237 NFS RN 9 11:07:12 0 2 0 OPERATOR 7 240 RESOLV RN 5:23:38 0 2 0 OPERATOR,<DOMAIN> 8 241 BATCON RN *:** 0:41:21 0 2 0 OPERATOR 10 242 LPTSPL RN 0:39:29 3 2 0 OPERATOR 12 243 PTYCON TI *:** 0:00:46 3 2 0 OPERATOR 13 246 MACDUM RN 3:26:07 1 10 0 OPERATOR,<MACDUMPS> 14 244 LPTSPL RN 0:52:31 3 2 0 OPERATOR 15 245 EXEC RN 3:20:32 3 2 0 OPERATOR,APS:<SPOOL.PS.SP> 16 247 EXEC RN 1:18:30 3 2 0 OPERATOR,APS:<SPOOL.IMAGEN> 17 250 MACRES RN 0:20:47 1 10 0 OPERATOR,<MACDUMPS> 18 205 PTYCON TI 0:06:29 1 10 0 OPERATOR,<MACDUMPS> $ Pieter Pieter Bowman Voice: 1-801-581-5252 University of Utah FAX: 1-801-581-4148 Department of Mathematics Email: bowman@math.utah.edu 155 S 1400 E RM 233 URL: http://www.math.utah.edu/~bowman Salt Lake City, Ut, 84112-0090 Office: 103 JWB 20-Dec-2000 00:43:35 -0800,983;000000000000 Return-Path: <alderson+mail@panix.com> Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for t20arc; Wed, 20 Dec 2000 00:43:34 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail1.panix.com (mail1.panix.com [166.84.0.212]) by Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU; Wed, 20 Dec 2000 00:43:05 PST Received: from panix3.panix.com (panix3.panix.com [166.84.0.228]) by mail1.panix.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id CE74E48B76 for <tops-20@panda.com>; Wed, 20 Dec 2000 03:41:46 -0500 (EST) Received: (from alderson@localhost) by panix3.panix.com (8.8.8/8.7.1/PanixN1.0) id DAA18905; Wed, 20 Dec 2000 03:41:46 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 03:41:46 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <200012200841.DAA18905@panix3.panix.com> X-Authentication-Warning: panix3.panix.com: alderson set sender to alderson+mail@panix.com using -f From: Rich Alderson <alderson+mail@panix.com> To: tops-20@panda.com Subject: Happy DEC-20! I'm sure others will post here, too. Peace and joy to you all at the Solstice. Rich Alderson XKL LLC