Adventure: Crowther's original source code found; photos from inside the real Colossal Cave

[d***@gmail.com]

I started working on this article in 2000, thinking I'd be able to
slap something together for the 25th anniversary of Colossal Cave
Adventure. But writing it has turned out to be an addictive Babelfish
puzzle. The preliminary research I did turned into the IF
Bibliography, which also led to a glossary for the IF Theorybook. The
book is in cryonic sleep at the moment but the glossary thrives at the
IF WIki.

Reading the post Andrew Plotkin published several years ago about all
the cave research he did in preparation for writing Hunter, in
Darkness made me start daydreaming about an actual visit to the real
Colossal Cave was a possibility, and watching a library copy of
Raiders of the Lost Ark made me fantasize about finding Crowther's
original source code.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of Adventure, and I think the
article was worth the wait.

The full text (with about 40 photos from in and around the real
Colossal Cave) is available online. See the link after the abstract.


Somewhere Nearby is Colossal Cave: Examining Will Crowther's Original
"Adventure" in Code and in Kentucky
Digital Humanities Quarterly, 1.1 (2007)

Abstract
Because so little primary historical work has been done on the classic
text computer game "Colossal Cave Adventure", academic and popular
references to it frequently perpetuate inaccuracies. "Adventure" was
the first in a series of text-based games ("interactive fiction") that
emphasize exploring, puzzles, and story, typically in a fantasy
setting; these games had a significant cultural impact in the late
1970s and a significant commercial presence in the early 1980s. Will
Crowther based his program on a real cave in Kentucky; Don Woods
expanded this version significantly. The expanded work has been
examined as an occasion for narrative encounters (Buckles 1985) and as
an aesthetic masterpiece of logic and utility (Knuth 1998); however,
previous attempts to assess the significance of "Adventure" remain
incomplete without access to Crowther's original source code and
Crowther's original source cave. Accordingly, this paper analyzes
previously unpublished files recovered from a backup of Woods's
student account at Stanford, and documents an excursion to the real
Colossal Cave in Kentucky in 2005. In addition, new interviews with
Crowther, Woods, and their associates (particularly members of
Crowther's family) provide new insights on the precise nature of
Woods's significant contributions. Real locations in the cave and
several artifacts (such as an iron rod and an axe head) correspond to
their representation in Crowther's version; however, by May of 1977,
Woods had expanded the game to include numerous locations that he
invented, along with significant technical innovations (such as
scorekeeping and a player inventory). Sources that incorrectly date
Crowther's original to 1972 or 1974, or that identify it as a
cartographic data file with no game or fantasy elements, are sourced
thinly if at all. The new evidence establishes that Crowther wrote the
game during the 1975-76 academic year and probably abandoned it in
early 1976. The original game employed magic, humor, simple combat,
and basic puzzles, all of which Woods greatly expanded. While Crowther
remained largely faithful to the geography of the real cave, his
original did introduce subtle changes to the environment in order to
improve the gameplay.


Will Crowther's original FORTRAN source code
http://jerz.setonhill.edu/if/crowther/

Full Article
http://brain.lis.uiuc.edu:2323/opencms/export/sites/default/dhq/vol/001/2/000009.html

The above URL is a test site, but one of the journal editors has
posted this URL to his blog, so I'm considering the article officially
published now.

I imagine the article will eventually occur on the journal's main
site, at

http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/001/2/000009.html

[dott.Piergiorgio]

Post by d***@gmail.com
Will Crowther's original FORTRAN source code
http://jerz.setonhill.edu/if/crowther/

O_O

The original Adventure 0 ?????

Unbelievable !!! a true Relic of the history of gaming !

I'm without words... Now rummaging this ancient but very significant
piece of code, it's remarkable that is very tiny compared to Woods's
350, 13k code and 19k data.

I can suggest you to upload them in their proper place, that is, the
if-archive ?

My congrats, mr. Jerz !!
Dott. Piergiorgio.

[Vardak]

Post by dott.Piergiorgio

Post by d***@gmail.com
Will Crowther's original FORTRAN source code
http://jerz.setonhill.edu/if/crowther/

O_O
The original Adventure 0 ?????
Unbelievable !!! a true Relic of the history of gaming !
I'm without words... Now rummaging this ancient but very significant
piece of code, it's remarkable that is very tiny compared to Woods's
350, 13k code and 19k data.
I can suggest you to upload them in their proper place, that is, the
if-archive ?
My congrats, mr. Jerz !!
Dott. Piergiorgio.

Brilliant stuff! (especially the photos illustrating all the famous places
in the game)

[David Librik]

Post by d***@gmail.com
Will Crowther's original FORTRAN source code
http://jerz.setonhill.edu/if/crowther/
Full Article
http://brain.lis.uiuc.edu:2323/opencms/export/sites/default/dhq/vol/001/2/000009.html
The above URL is a test site, but one of the journal editors has
posted this URL to his blog, so I'm considering the article officially
published now.

HOLY MOLY. This is amazing work. I especially love the photographs
illustrating all the famous places in Adventure: the cobble crawl,
the window on the pit, the hall of mists, the maze of twisty passages
all alike. (You got to cave with Roger Brucker, too -- I hope you
know how fortunate you are.) And you found the original Will Crowther
FORTRAN source code, long thought to be lost forever, and analyzed it.
Congratulations on a historical achievement and a great article!

- David Librik
***@panix.com

[Urbatain]

Post by David Librik
all alike. (You got to cave with Roger Brucker, too -- I hope you
know how fortunate you are.) And you found the original Will Crowther
FORTRAN source code, long thought to be lost forever, and analyzed it.
Congratulations on a historical achievement and a great article!

And what about to make a game about the achievement?! As the author
notes, he feels in a "Indiana" mood while making the article. It could
be a good idea to do that in an IF format that allow us to listen that
stories in the dark or the boring search for the original source
code :) yes I know, maybe you have no thrilling experiences for a
game, but just puting into some nazis and some savage animals and a
whip, you got it!

Thanks for the article!

Urbatain.

[Graham Nelson]

Post by d***@gmail.com
Somewhere Nearby is Colossal Cave: Examining Will Crowther's Original
"Adventure" in Code and in Kentucky
Digital Humanities Quarterly, 1.1 (2007)

It is clear on a single reading that this is the most important single
paper ever written on the history of interactive fiction.

[Rubes]

Post by Graham Nelson
It is clear on a single reading that this is the most important single
paper ever written on the history of interactive fiction.

I have to agree with you on this. This is jaw-dropping stuff.
Outstanding.

[David Kinder]

Wow, this is exceptionally cool. Now we just need to find a way to get the
Crowther version running again ...

David

[Eric Forgeot]

Post by David Kinder
Wow, this is exceptionally cool. Now we just need to find a way to get the
Crowther version running again ...
David

yes, just out of curiosity, because I don't know anything about Fortran, is
it possible to compile those sources with for example g77 (gnu fortran), do
we have to edit / adapt / modify the source before ?

[David Kinder]

Post by Eric Forgeot
yes, just out of curiosity, because I don't know anything about Fortran, is
it possible to compile those sources with for example g77 (gnu fortran), do
we have to edit / adapt / modify the source before ?

Before using a standard Fortran compiler there would definitely need to be
modification: it was written in Fortran-IV (probably), which is much older
than the standard Fortran-77 that g77 understands. Given what the known
original Crowther/Woods 350 point code looks like, it also has dependencies
on the PDP-10 architecture (36 bit words).

Not impossible to fix, but not trivial, either.

David

[Stephen Gilbert]

Post by David Kinder

Post by Eric Forgeot
yes, just out of curiosity, because I don't know anything about Fortran, is
it possible to compile those sources with for example g77 (gnu fortran), do
we have to edit / adapt / modify the source before ?

Before using a standard Fortran compiler there would definitely need to be
modification: it was written in Fortran-IV (probably), which is much older
than the standard Fortran-77 that g77 understands. Given what the known
original Crowther/Woods 350 point code looks like, it also has dependencies
on the PDP-10 architecture (36 bit words).
Not impossible to fix, but not trivial, either.
David

I know next to nothing about Fortran, but could it be Fortran 66 instead
of IV? I believe g77 is able to compile Fortran 66 code.

If anyone is considering porting this, comp.lang.fortran looks like it has
an active and helpful community.

[c***@gmail.com]

Post by Stephen Gilbert
I know next to nothing about Fortran, but could it be Fortran 66 instead
of IV? I believe g77 is able to compile Fortran 66 code.

That the file names end with 'f4' is probably a clue. The code I've
looked
at isn't particularly complicated and there isn't that much of it; I
don't
think it would be either difficult or tedious to port it.

Chuck

[Rich Alderson]

Post by Stephen Gilbert
I know next to nothing about Fortran, but could it be Fortran 66 instead
of IV? I believe g77 is able to compile Fortran 66 code.

"Fortran 66" is a back formation on Fortran 77. So-called Fortran 66 *is*
FORTRAN IV in hindsight.

[Bruce Stephens]

Post by Eric Forgeot

Post by David Kinder
Wow, this is exceptionally cool. Now we just need to find a way to get the
Crowther version running again ...
David

yes, just out of curiosity, because I don't know anything about Fortran, is
it possible to compile those sources with for example g77 (gnu fortran), do
we have to edit / adapt / modify the source before ?

It'll need some changing, I think, but basically it ought to be
possible, yes. I spotted an .XOR., which isn't standard, I think, and
the continuations in:

COMMON RTEXT,LLINE
DIMENSION IOBJ(300),ICHAIN(100),IPLACE(100)
1 ,IFIXED(100),COND(300),PROP(100),ABB(300),LLINE(1000,22)
2 ,LTEXT(300),STEXT(300),KEY(300),DEFAULT(300),TRAVEL(1000)
3 ,TK(25),KTAB(1000),ATAB(1000),BTEXT(200),DSEEN(10)

Aren't right. It should be

COMMON RTEXT,LLINE
DIMENSION IOBJ(300),ICHAIN(100),IPLACE(100)
1 ,IFIXED(100),COND(300),PROP(100),ABB(300),LLINE(1000,22)
2 ,LTEXT(300),STEXT(300),KEY(300),DEFAULT(300),TRAVEL(1000)
3 ,TK(25),KTAB(1000),ATAB(1000),BTEXT(200),DSEEN(10)

[David Librik]

Post by Bruce Stephens
It'll need some changing, I think, but basically it ought to be
possible, yes. I spotted an .XOR., which isn't standard, I think, and

Once you spot that strings are stored as a sequence of 7-bit
characters packed 5 to a (36-bit) machine word (with the lowest
bit ignored), I think the most wretched hive of scum and villany
is in GETIN, which is a very PDP-10 dependent subroutine for
accepting input and breaking it into two words. It would have to
be completely rewritten for any other computer, no matter what
language you use. That's where all the bit-magic of .XOR. and
SHIFT is, at least.

A lot of the weird logic associated with text in that program is
trying to work with the way strings are stored. A string is an
array of 36-bit integers, each integer holding 5 characters. If
the string isn't a multiple of 5 characters in length, spaces are
added to the end. All of the long text strings are stored in a
single two-dimensional array called LLINE. The first two integers
in each LLINE string aren't holding characters; they store an
indication of whether this string is part of a larger paragraph
(LLINE(n,1)), and how long the string is in integers (LLINE(n,2)),
respectively. The actual text for string LLINE(n) starts at
LLINE(n,3).

The funny thing is ... I thought PDP-10 character codes were six
bits, not seven. Thus filenames could be up to 6 characters long:
e.g. ADVENT. But that 5-character limitation in strings explains
why, in the original Adventure, all words were unique to only five
letters -- and why we have PLUGH and XYZZY rather than REZROV.

A FORTRAN compiler or translator would work on that code, but only
for the main "logic" of the game -- i.e. lines 1100 to the END of
the main program, excluding anything having to do with printing
or comparing strings. When you see something like
INTEGER A
... get input into A ...
IF (A .EQ. 'XYZZY')
you are sunk, because the assumption is that 'XYZZY' is a single
number and can be manipulated like one. An intelligent porter
sees that it's only used for strings and changes it to a string
variable; but "f2c" is going to barf and die.

- David Librik
***@panix.com

[greg]

Post by David Librik
The funny thing is ... I thought PDP-10 character codes were six
bits, not seven.

It's quite likely there was more than one format
used for storing text, depending on things like
whether you wanted lower case letters.

--
Greg

[Steve Wertz]

Post by greg

Post by David Librik
The funny thing is ... I thought PDP-10 character codes were six
bits, not seven.

It's quite likely there was more than one format
used for storing text, depending on things like
whether you wanted lower case letters.

Punch cards didn't have lower case letters.

-sw

[Mark Zellers]

Post by Steve Wertz

Post by greg

Post by David Librik
The funny thing is ... I thought PDP-10 character codes were six
bits, not seven.

It's quite likely there was more than one format
used for storing text, depending on things like
whether you wanted lower case letters.

Punch cards didn't have lower case letters.
-sw

The normal text storage on the PDP-10 was 7-bit ASCII, packed 5 bits
to the 36-bit word with the low order bit left zero. For some
purposes, such as storing filenames, a more limited 6-bit alphabet was
used (the characters in the range SPACE to "]". One of the neat
features of the PDP-10 was that it could operate on any sized byte you
liked, from 1 to 36 bits wide. Although the PDP-10s I came in contact
with may have had card readers, they were primarily used via
timesharing.

Back when I was in college (around 1977 or 1978), I came across a port
of Adventure to the PR1ME minicomputer. I ported it to the IBM-360
running the Michigan Terminal System (MTS). I then took that and
ported it BACK to TOPS-10 (talk about carrying coals to Newcastle!).

Some friends and I hacked Adventure to create the RPI Steam Tunnel
Game. I was able to type in the database from a listing I had kept
all these years and managed to get it running on the SIMH emulator.
It was mostly bad puns on people and places at RPI (for example, James
Moss was the director of computing services, so in one room the
description read "MOSS COVERS THE TERMINALS").

Mark H. Zellers
RPI '81
Mountain View, CA

[Eric Smith]

Post by Steve Wertz
Punch cards didn't have lower case letters.

While common keypunch machines such as the IBM 024, 026, and 029 did
not directly support lower case, both IBM and DEC defined card codes
that included lower case, by using multiple zone punches. IBM defined
punch combinations for the entire 256-character EBCDIC code, and DEC
defined punch combinations for the entire 128-character ASCII code.

The earliest references I've found are in the IBM System/360
Principles of Operation, A22-6821-6, January 13, 1967, page 150.3, and
the DECsystem10 User's Handbook second edition, DEC-10-NGZB-D, July
1972, page 788:

http://bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/360/poo/A22-6821-6_360PrincOpsJan67.pdf

http://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/pdp10/1972_PDP10_UsersHandbook/08_commands.pdf
(page 360 of PDF file)

The alphabetic characters, both upper and lower case, are the same in
both codes:

upper lower
case punches case punches
----- -------- ----- --------
A 12 1 a 12 0 1
B 12 2 b 12 0 2
C 12 3 c 12 0 3
D 12 4 d 12 0 4
E 12 5 e 12 0 5
F 12 6 f 12 0 6
G 12 7 g 12 0 7
H 12 8 h 12 0 8
I 12 9 i 12 0 9

J 11 1 j 12 11 1
K 11 2 k 12 11 2
L 11 3 l 12 11 3
M 11 4 m 12 11 4
N 11 5 n 12 11 5
O 11 6 o 12 11 6
P 11 7 p 12 11 7
Q 11 8 q 12 11 8
R 11 9 r 12 11 9

S 0 2 s 11 0 2
T 0 3 t 11 0 3
U 0 4 u 11 0 4
V 0 5 v 11 0 5
W 0 6 w 11 0 6
X 0 7 x 11 0 7
Y 0 8 y 11 0 8
Z 0 9 z 11 0 9

[Matthew T. Russotto]

Post by David Librik
Once you spot that strings are stored as a sequence of 7-bit
characters packed 5 to a (36-bit) machine word (with the lowest
bit ignored), I think the most wretched hive of scum and villany
is in GETIN, which is a very PDP-10 dependent subroutine for
accepting input and breaking it into two words. It would have to
be completely rewritten for any other computer, no matter what
language you use. That's where all the bit-magic of .XOR. and
SHIFT is, at least.

Correct. But there's an additional joker in GETIN.

Post by David Librik
number and can be manipulated like one. An intelligent porter
sees that it's only used for strings and changes it to a string
variable; but "f2c" is going to barf and die.

Fortunately, there are only a few variables which need to be declared
"CHARACTER*5".

I've got it almost working under g77. I broke LLINE into three
arrays and fixed the "G" and "A" formats. I also changed the data file from
tab-delimited fields to fixed-length fields, changed the IFILE to
OPEN, and implemented RAN.

The additional joker is holding me back. The program reads using a
format 4A5 into an array A, and apparently
ENTER STREAM
is to be returned such that A(1)='ENTER' and A(2)='STREAM'. But
elsewhere in GETIN it expects the spaces to appear literally. So I'm
not sure how that format was supposed to work.

There's also a bug in the 77-03-11 GETIN.

[Matthew T. Russotto]

Post by Matthew T. Russotto
The additional joker is holding me back. The program reads using a
format 4A5 into an array A, and apparently
ENTER STREAM
is to be returned such that A(1)='ENTER' and A(2)='STREAM'. But
elsewhere in GETIN it expects the spaces to appear literally. So I'm
not sure how that format was supposed to work.

Nevermind. It appears this is actually a bug in the original code.
The later versions correct it.

[David Librik]

Post by Matthew T. Russotto
Nevermind. It appears this is actually a bug in the original code.
The later versions correct it.

There are a number of bugs in that program, unfortunately.

Is it better to present the most accurate representation of
Crowther's original code, or fix the mistakes in order to give
the program he intended, a game you can actually play?

Perhaps as a compromise one can implement the immediate bug
fixes that Don Woods had to add (in 77-03-31) to get it running.

- David Librik
***@panix.com

[Matthew T. Russotto]

Post by David Librik

Post by Matthew T. Russotto
Nevermind. It appears this is actually a bug in the original code.
The later versions correct it.

There are a number of bugs in that program, unfortunately.
Is it better to present the most accurate representation of
Crowther's original code, or fix the mistakes in order to give
the program he intended, a game you can actually play?
Perhaps as a compromise one can implement the immediate bug
fixes that Don Woods had to add (in 77-03-31) to get it running.

Why compromise when you can have both?

Compilable (g77) versions of 77-03-11 and 77-03-31:

http://www.russotto.net/~russotto/ADVENT

[d***@gmail.com]

Post by Matthew T. Russotto
http://www.russotto.net/~russotto/ADVENT

That was fast!

If anybody with the technical know-how could rig this up to play in a
Java applet, or through a web interface, I'd be grateful. I'd be happy
to arrange to host the program somewhere else.

[Glenn P.,]

Post by d***@gmail.com

Post by Matthew T. Russotto
http://www.russotto.net/~russotto/ADVENT

That was fast!
If anybody with the technical know-how could rig this up to play
in a Java applet, or through a web interface, I'd be grateful.

I'd be far more grateful if someone would port it to Inform!!! :)

-- _____ %%%%%%%%%% "Glenn P.," <C128UserDELETE-***@FVI.Net> %%%%%%%%%
{~._.~} --------------------------------------------------------------
_( Y )_ "EVERYTHING is your fault. It's in your contract."
(:_~*~_:)
(_)-(_) (Quark to Rom, "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine")

:: Take Note Of The Spam Block On My E-Mail Address! ::

[JDC]

Post by Matthew T. Russotto
http://www.russotto.net/~russotto/ADVENT

Excellent; thanks for these.

Note for OS X users: The OS X version of gcc does not seem to include
g77, but I found a binary here:
http://hpc.sourceforge.net/
You should also be able to get it with fink or something. Also note
that if you download the packages in Safari, it will add a spurious
".txt" to the .dat files; you need to remove this, but otherwise these
compile fine.

By the way, was I the only one who hadn't looked at Fortran code in at
least 15 years and whose brain initially tried to parse Fortran's
dotted comparisons as objects and methods? :)

-JDC

[Tom Jone]

This is great !!!! Thanks Matthew for the conversion.I downloaded the
G77 compiler and I'm exploring the caverns...

Arnout Symoens
http://blog.marjanenarnout.be

[d***@btinternet.com]

Post by Matthew T. Russotto
Why compromise when you can have both?

Cool! A quick Windows build (done with MinGW G77) is here, for any
Windows users who don't fancy messing with a compiler:

http://www.ifarchive.org/if-archive/unprocessed/adv_crowther_win.zip

David

[d***@gmail.com]

Post by Matthew T. Russotto
http://www.russotto.net/~russotto/ADVENT
--

FYI, when I mentioned how quickly Matt and David worked, the editor of
Digital Humanities Quarterly added a note to her editorial that
credits rec.arts.int-fiction, and specifically Matt and David, for
taking the study of Adventure to the next step.

http://brain.lis.uiuc.edu:2323/opencms/export/sites/default/dhq/vol/001/2/000013.html

(Temporary URL... will move, probably to http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/001/2/000013.html)

[Steve Wertz]

Post by David Librik

Post by Bruce Stephens
It'll need some changing, I think, but basically it ought to be
possible, yes. I spotted an .XOR., which isn't standard, I think, and

Once you spot that strings are stored as a sequence of 7-bit
characters packed 5 to a (36-bit) machine word (with the lowest
bit ignored), I think the most wretched hive of scum and villany
is in GETIN, which is a very PDP-10 dependent subroutine for
accepting input and breaking it into two words. It would have to
be completely rewritten for any other computer, no matter what
language you use. That's where all the bit-magic of .XOR. and
SHIFT is, at least.
A lot of the weird logic associated with text in that program is
trying to work with the way strings are stored. A string is an
array of 36-bit integers, each integer holding 5 characters. If
the string isn't a multiple of 5 characters in length, spaces are
added to the end. All of the long text strings are stored in a
single two-dimensional array called LLINE. The first two integers
in each LLINE string aren't holding characters; they store an
indication of whether this string is part of a larger paragraph
(LLINE(n,1)), and how long the string is in integers (LLINE(n,2)),
respectively. The actual text for string LLINE(n) starts at
LLINE(n,3).
The funny thing is ... I thought PDP-10 character codes were six
e.g. ADVENT. But that 5-character limitation in strings explains
why, in the original Adventure, all words were unique to only five
letters -- and why we have PLUGH and XYZZY rather than REZROV.
A FORTRAN compiler or translator would work on that code, but only
for the main "logic" of the game -- i.e. lines 1100 to the END of
the main program, excluding anything having to do with printing
or comparing strings. When you see something like
INTEGER A
... get input into A ...
IF (A .EQ. 'XYZZY')
you are sunk, because the assumption is that 'XYZZY' is a single
number and can be manipulated like one. An intelligent porter
sees that it's only used for strings and changes it to a string
variable; but "f2c" is going to barf and die.

OK, that's where I gave up :-) I wasn't counting on anything
architecture-specific. Compilers are supposed to hide that stuff
these days <sigh>.

-sw

[dott.Piergiorgio]

Post by Eric Forgeot

Post by David Kinder
Wow, this is exceptionally cool. Now we just need to find a way to get the
Crowther version running again ...
David

yes, just out of curiosity, because I don't know anything about Fortran, is
it possible to compile those sources with for example g77 (gnu fortran), do
we have to edit / adapt / modify the source before ?

I suggest of using Bob Supnik's SIMH emulator, whose is an excellent
emulator of the PDP-10 (and other machines...) Also, there's floating on
the net the binaries of the OS for the -10

Another resource can be Al Kossow's archive of manuals of 50s to 70s
machines, surely there is the full documentation on the PDP-10 Fortran IV

I think that there's enough resources for understanding, compiling, and
running Adventure 0 ;)

Best regards from Italy,
Dott. Piergiorgio.

[W***@gmail.com]

On Aug 11, 4:49 pm, "dott.Piergiorgio"

Post by dott.Piergiorgio

Post by Eric Forgeot

Post by David Kinder
Wow, this is exceptionally cool. Now we just need to find a way to get the
Crowther version running again ...
David

yes, just out of curiosity, because I don't know anything about Fortran, is
it possible to compile those sources with for example g77 (gnu fortran), do
we have to edit / adapt / modify the source before ?

I suggest of using Bob Supnik's SIMH emulator, whose is an excellent
emulator of the PDP-10 (and other machines...) Also, there's floating on
the net the binaries of the OS for the -10
Another resource can be Al Kossow's archive of manuals of 50s to 70s
machines, surely there is the full documentation on the PDP-10 Fortran IV
I think that there's enough resources for understanding, compiling, and
running Adventure 0 ;)
Best regards from Italy,
Dott. Piergiorgio.

In case anyone is interested I have managed to make the 77-03-31
version compile and run on TOPS-10
its available on http://www.steubentech.com/~talon/pdp10 as both a
tape image and inside the TOPS-10 distribution there (as of this post
I haven't fully uploaded the new distro so wait until the link points
to the tops10-1.4.tar.bz2 file to download the entire tops 10
system. )

[dott.Piergiorgio]

Post by W***@gmail.com
In case anyone is interested I have managed to make the 77-03-31
version compile and run on TOPS-10
its available on http://www.steubentech.com/~talon/pdp10 as both a
tape image and inside the TOPS-10 distribution there (as of this post
I haven't fully uploaded the new distro so wait until the link points
to the tops10-1.4.tar.bz2 file to download the entire tops 10
system. )

Good, if not excellent :)

Now we have enough binary environments for Adventure 0 :)

Best regards from Italy,
Dott. Piergiorgio.

[Rich Alderson]

Post by dott.Piergiorgio
I suggest of using Bob Supnik's SIMH emulator, whose is an excellent
emulator of the PDP-10 (and other machines...) Also, there's floating on
the net the binaries of the OS for the -10
Another resource can be Al Kossow's archive of manuals of 50s to 70s
machines, surely there is the full documentation on the PDP-10 Fortran IV
I think that there's enough resources for understanding, compiling, and
running Adventure 0 ;)

It is also possible to run both Adventure and Zork on real PDP-10 hardware.
Sign up for accounts on the systems at http://PDPplanet.org (click on the
Community button).

[dott.Piergiorgio]

Post by Rich Alderson
It is also possible to run both Adventure and Zork on real PDP-10 hardware.
Sign up for accounts on the systems at http://PDPplanet.org (click on the
Community button).

A real -10 running and kicking ? excellent news ! :) :)

Best regards from Italy,
Dott. Piergiorgio.

[Steve Wertz]

Post by Eric Forgeot

Post by David Kinder
Wow, this is exceptionally cool. Now we just need to find a way to get the
Crowther version running again ...
David

yes, just out of curiosity, because I don't know anything about Fortran, is
it possible to compile those sources with for example g77 (gnu fortran), do
we have to edit / adapt / modify the source before ?

I'm taking a stab at compiling it using Watcom's Open Fortran.
As people have already pointed out, it's Fortran 66, for which no
compilers exist for Windows that I can find, though it looks like
other platforms have compilers which will accept -l66.

The code cannot be copied from the FTP site as is. All the
columns are out of whack. The line continuation characters are
all shifted to the right one too many spaces, and all lines have
2 extra spaces in the them. I've fixed all that, at least.

FORMAT()'s need to be converted, and right now I'm stuck on
string comparison, as in: IF(LLINE(I,21-K).NE.' ') GOTO 1007 (it
appears to be trying to use an index of a string array, but Tidy
and Watcom both don't like that type of construct).

It shouldn't be too hard for someone who actually *knows*
Fortran. I'll still keep whacking away at it, but since I
misplaced my "Fortran IV for Dummies" book it's kinda slow going.
I've never used Fortran before, but I do have a bunch of other
languages under my belt.

If anybody wants what I have to far, email me at cluemail.com
(delete the "post").

-sw

[Matthew T. Russotto]

Post by Steve Wertz
The code cannot be copied from the FTP site as is. All the
columns are out of whack. The line continuation characters are
all shifted to the right one too many spaces, and all lines have
2 extra spaces in the them. I've fixed all that, at least.

The code uses a feature of TOPS-10 FORTRAN which allows lines to begin
with a TAB. If they do, then if the next character is a digit, it's a
continuation line; if the next character is not a digit, it's a
regular line.

And you're too late :-)

[Steve Wertz]

Post by Matthew T. Russotto
And you're too late :-)

How many of us running TOPS? :-P

-sw

[Rich Alderson]

Post by Steve Wertz

Post by Matthew T. Russotto
And you're too late :-)

How many of us running TOPS? :-P

There's not such thing as "TOPS" as far as the PDP-10 goes. There's Tops-10
and TOPS-20, which share no code, no user interface, and no philosophy, only
the hardware architecture.

And besides the people who are running either of these OSes on Supnik's SimH or
Harrenstein's KLH10, there is real hardware running both at PDPplanet.

[Stephen Gilbert]

This is jaw-droppingly fantastic. Congratulations Dennis.

[Glenn P.,]

Post by d***@gmail.com
Will Crowther's original FORTRAN source code
http://jerz.setonhill.edu/if/crowther/

When I click on this link, I get the following:

Parent Directory -
advdat.77-03-11 08-Jun-2007 15:13 19K
advdat.77-03-31 08-Jun-2007 15:13 19K
advf4.77-03-11 08-Jun-2007 15:13 13K
advf4.77-03-23 08-Jun-2007 15:13 13K
advf4.77-03-31 08-Jun-2007 15:13 13K

...Which one of these files is the "Adventure" file??? I don't understand
why there are FIVE files (is this a feature of FORTRAN?)...

--_____ %%%%%%%%%%% "Glenn P.," <C128UserDELETE-***@FVI.Net> %%%%%%%%%%%
{~._.~} -----------------------------------------------------------------
_( Y )_ There was no path to follow through the wood. The branches of
(:_~*~_:) the trees hung low and thick, and the earth beneath them was damp
(_)-(_) and dark and dank, and no birds sang.
========= "This," said Katherine, "is what I would call a tulgey wood."
///////// "Don't!" cried Martha. "Suppose something came whiffling
========= through it!" --EAGER, Edward: "Half Magic" (Chapter IV).

:: Take Note Of The Spam Block On My E-Mail Address! ::

[Dannii]

There are five files because Don Woods started editing them. As the
article explains, there is a data file and a code file. The 77-03-11
files should be the last version by Crowther.

Post by Glenn P.,

Post by d***@gmail.com
Will Crowther's original FORTRAN source code
http://jerz.setonhill.edu/if/crowther/

Parent Directory -
advdat.77-03-11 08-Jun-2007 15:13 19K
advdat.77-03-31 08-Jun-2007 15:13 19K
advf4.77-03-11 08-Jun-2007 15:13 13K
advf4.77-03-23 08-Jun-2007 15:13 13K
advf4.77-03-31 08-Jun-2007 15:13 13K
...Which one of these files is the "Adventure" file??? I don't understand
why there are FIVE files (is this a feature of FORTRAN?)...
{~._.~} -----------------------------------------------------------------
_( Y )_ There was no path to follow through the wood. The branches of
(:_~*~_:) the trees hung low and thick, and the earth beneath them was damp
(_)-(_) and dark and dank, and no birds sang.
========= "This," said Katherine, "is what I would call a tulgey wood."
///////// "Don't!" cried Martha. "Suppose something came whiffling
========= through it!" --EAGER, Edward: "Half Magic" (Chapter IV).

[Adam Thornton]

Post by Glenn P.,
Parent Directory -
advdat.77-03-11 08-Jun-2007 15:13 19K
advdat.77-03-31 08-Jun-2007 15:13 19K
advf4.77-03-11 08-Jun-2007 15:13 13K
advf4.77-03-23 08-Jun-2007 15:13 13K
advf4.77-03-31 08-Jun-2007 15:13 13K
...Which one of these files is the "Adventure" file??? I don't understand
why there are FIVE files (is this a feature of FORTRAN?)...

Code is in advf4; there are three versions.

Data is in advdat, of which there are two versions.

Adam

[asdf]

This is a brilliant piece of work and a major advance in the field of
IF studies.

Post by d***@gmail.com
I started working on this article in 2000, thinking I'd be able to
slap something together for the 25th anniversary of Colossal Cave
Adventure. But writing it has turned out to be an addictive Babelfish
puzzle. The preliminary research I did turned into the IF
Bibliography, which also led to a glossary for the IF Theorybook. The
book is in cryonic sleep at the moment but the glossary thrives at the
IF WIki.
Reading the post Andrew Plotkin published several years ago about all
the cave research he did in preparation for writing Hunter, in
Darkness made me start daydreaming about an actual visit to the real
Colossal Cave was a possibility, and watching a library copy of
Raiders of the Lost Ark made me fantasize about finding Crowther's
original source code.
This year marks the 30th anniversary of Adventure, and I think the
article was worth the wait.
The full text (with about 40 photos from in and around the real
Colossal Cave) is available online. See the link after the abstract.
Somewhere Nearby is Colossal Cave: Examining Will Crowther's Original
"Adventure" in Code and in Kentucky
Digital Humanities Quarterly, 1.1 (2007)
Abstract
Because so little primary historical work has been done on the classic
text computer game "Colossal Cave Adventure", academic and popular
references to it frequently perpetuate inaccuracies. "Adventure" was
the first in a series of text-based games ("interactive fiction") that
emphasize exploring, puzzles, and story, typically in a fantasy
setting; these games had a significant cultural impact in the late
1970s and a significant commercial presence in the early 1980s. Will
Crowther based his program on a real cave in Kentucky; Don Woods
expanded this version significantly. The expanded work has been
examined as an occasion for narrative encounters (Buckles 1985) and as
an aesthetic masterpiece of logic and utility (Knuth 1998); however,
previous attempts to assess the significance of "Adventure" remain
incomplete without access to Crowther's original source code and
Crowther's original source cave. Accordingly, this paper analyzes
previously unpublished files recovered from a backup of Woods's
student account at Stanford, and documents an excursion to the real
Colossal Cave in Kentucky in 2005. In addition, new interviews with
Crowther, Woods, and their associates (particularly members of
Crowther's family) provide new insights on the precise nature of
Woods's significant contributions. Real locations in the cave and
several artifacts (such as an iron rod and an axe head) correspond to
their representation in Crowther's version; however, by May of 1977,
Woods had expanded the game to include numerous locations that he
invented, along with significant technical innovations (such as
scorekeeping and a player inventory). Sources that incorrectly date
Crowther's original to 1972 or 1974, or that identify it as a
cartographic data file with no game or fantasy elements, are sourced
thinly if at all. The new evidence establishes that Crowther wrote the
game during the 1975-76 academic year and probably abandoned it in
early 1976. The original game employed magic, humor, simple combat,
and basic puzzles, all of which Woods greatly expanded. While Crowther
remained largely faithful to the geography of the real cave, his
original did introduce subtle changes to the environment in order to
improve the gameplay.
Will Crowther's original FORTRAN source codehttp://jerz.setonhill.edu/if/crowther/
Full Articlehttp://brain.lis.uiuc.edu:2323/opencms/export/sites/default/dhq/vol/0...
The above URL is a test site, but one of the journal editors has
posted this URL to his blog, so I'm considering the article officially
published now.
I imagine the article will eventually occur on the journal's main
site, at
http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/001/2/000009.html

[Stephen Granade]

Post by d***@gmail.com
Somewhere Nearby is Colossal Cave: Examining Will Crowther's Original
"Adventure" in Code and in Kentucky
Digital Humanities Quarterly, 1.1 (2007)

This is astounding stuff. Bravo!

Stephen

[REH]

I just happened to check the news group today. I feel like it's
Christmas! What a great find, and a priceless treasure to give to the
community.

[Andreas Davour]

Damn! This is so great! I can only think one one other thing that would
compare, and that's finally being able to compile the MDL source for
Zork to a running game. (and I have some small hope of that being done,
soon)

Congratulation! Dennis, this will get you famous. :-)

/andreas

[Rich Alderson]

Post by Andreas Davour
Damn! This is so great! I can only think one one other thing that would
compare, and that's finally being able to compile the MDL source for
Zork to a running game. (and I have some small hope of that being done,
soon)

I'm still trying to find my MDL tape.

[m***@gmail.com]

GPL It? :-P

[Litestar]

Post by m***@gmail.com
GPL It? :-P

Why not just put it in the public domain?

[Glenn P.,]

:> GPL It? :-P

Post by Litestar
Why not just put it in the public domain?

<<Scratches under the chin>> ...The person who located the code cannot do
either one, as only the original author (or one to whom he had explicity
given the rights) -- Crowther, in this case -- would have the authority
to do so. And the person who has located this code for us is, alas,
neither Crowther himself, nor a holder of assigned rights.

But having said that, isn't the thing in the public domain already? I
mean, "I Am Not A Lawyer, BUT..." -- wasn't this code written prior to
1976, when (so far as I understand it) copyright required BOTH an
explicit registration, AND affixation of copyright notice; lasted only
28 years at a time; and had to be regularly renewed???

Since Crowther (at least, to the best of my knowledge!) never did ANY
of these things, it seems to me that he never possessed ANY copyright
on the code to begin with, and therefore it would seem to have fallen
into the Public Domain long ago.

-- _____ %%%%%%% "Glenn P.," <C128UserDELETE-***@FVI.Net> %%%%%%
{~._.~} ----------------------------------------------------------
_( Y )_ "Surrender, varlet! Thou art the prisoner of me lance!"
(:_~*~_:) "I art? And whomsoever art thou, in thy cast-iron tuxedo?"
(_)-(_) --The Knight & Bugs Bunny, respectively:
========= "A Connecticut Rabbit In King Arthur's Court".

:: Take Note Of The Spam Block On My E-Mail Address! ::

[REH]

Post by Glenn P.,
But having said that, isn't the thing in the public domain already? I
mean, "I Am Not A Lawyer, BUT..." -- wasn't this code written prior to
1976, when (so far as I understand it) copyright required BOTH an
explicit registration, AND affixation of copyright notice; lasted only
28 years at a time; and had to be regularly renewed???
Since Crowther (at least, to the best of my knowledge!) never did ANY
of these things, it seems to me that he never possessed ANY copyright
on the code to begin with, and therefore it would seem to have fallen
into the Public Domain long ago.

I don't know about the requirement for the notice (which starts the
"clock" ticking down), but explicit registration is not required.
Registration just makes proving copyright easier. The poor man's form
of this was just to mail the documents to yourself, and use the
unopened, postmarked package as proof, if necessary.

[Glenn P.,]

I don't know about the requirement for the notice (which starts the "clock"
ticking down), but explicit registration is not required. Registration just
makes proving copyright easier.

My understanding -- and I could be wrong -- is that, prior to 1976, you didn't
acquire copyright until you had registered it. The modern copyright, which is
automatic and doesn't require registration, only came into being with the
amendments to the copyright law that were adopted in 1976.

-- >>>>> "Glenn P.," <C128UserDELETE-***@FVI.Net> <<<<<
-----------------------------------------
"Memoria tenete hanc esse Fabulam et omnino per Iocum et per Simulationem,
itaque te esse non credere verbum solum etsi verum est." [Infantes Aquarum]

:: Take Note Of The Spam Block On My E-Mail Address! ::

[Zylon]

Post by Glenn P.,
My understanding -- and I could be wrong -- is that, prior to 1976, you didn't
acquire copyright until you had registered it. The modern copyright, which is
automatic and doesn't require registration, only came into being with the
amendments to the copyright law that were adopted in 1976.

I think that's right. The original copyright acts conditioned the grant of
federal copyright upon specific formalities, like a registration. The 1976
additions then said that registration was not a prerequisite to copyright
protection. (This, by the way, is why "Night of the Living Dead" -- made in
1968 -- fell into the public domain where it remains today.) The 1976
provision didn't eliminate the requirement that copyright notice be placed
all published copies of a work BUT it does provide three clauses that
protect against some of the cases where copyrights weren't placed on the
work.

As far as this "Adventure" ("Colossal Cave"?), if the original authors are
still around I suppose they could be asked. But, on the other hand, whether
or not it's public domain, does it really matter? Is someone going to want
to recreate the game exactly as it was? I doubt those games would do as well
today as they did back in the 70s.

[j***@yahoo.com]

Post by Zylon

Post by Glenn P.,
My understanding -- and I could be wrong -- is that, prior to 1976, you didn't
acquire copyright until you had registered it. The modern copyright, which is
automatic and doesn't require registration, only came into being with the
amendments to the copyright law that were adopted in 1976.

I think that's right. The original copyright acts conditioned the grant of
federal copyright upon specific formalities, like a registration. The 1976
additions then said that registration was not a prerequisite to copyright
protection. (This, by the way, is why "Night of the Living Dead" -- made in
1968 -- fell into the public domain where it remains today.) The 1976
provision didn't eliminate the requirement that copyright notice be placed
all published copies of a work BUT it does provide three clauses that
protect against some of the cases where copyrights weren't placed on the
work.

Not quite correct. Prior to 1978 the notice was absolutely required
(authorized publication without notice put the work in the public
domain), but registration was optional. Registration granted
additional rights, and was required before an infringement suit could
be filed.

After 1978 (effective date of 76 act) notice was strongly encouraged,
indeed in theory required, but absence of notice did *not* lose
copyright protection, so notice was in practice optional. After the
Berne Copyright Convention was signed (around 1980 I think, but I'd
have to check), notice became formally optional, and no formalities of
any kind could be required. (I have a copy of the annotated 1976 act
available, if anyone wants more details)

The "exceptions" in the 1976 act providing for copyright to be
retained if a "small number" of copies were published without notice
merely codified court decisions made under the prior law.

-John Marks

[j***@yahoo.com]

Post by Glenn P.,

I don't know about the requirement for the notice (which starts the "clock"
ticking down), but explicit registration is not required. Registration just
makes proving copyright easier.

My understanding -- and I could be wrong -- is that, prior to 1976, you didn't
acquire copyright until you had registered it. The modern copyright, which is
automatic and doesn't require registration, only came into being with the
amendments to the copyright law that were adopted in 1976.

You are incorrect. Registration has never been required for copyright.
Prior to 1976, publication with a notice secured copyright, and
unpublished works were not copyrighted, but had limited protection
under other provisions, and under so-called "common-law
copyright" (which the 1976 act abolished). Through 1977 (the 1976 act
took effect in 1978) *publication* without a notice lost all
copyright, *provided* that the publication was by the author or under
the author's authority. An *unauthorized* publication had no effect,
although proving that it was unauthorized could be tricky. (there was
also an exception for the publication of a "strictly limited number of
copies" where the absence of a notice was not fatal). "Publication" in
that time required that the work be "made available to the general
public".

But it is not at all clear that prior to 1978 placing a program on a
computer where several people could run it constituted publication of
the source code. Unpublished manuscripts (which includes all
unpublished works that would now be copyrighted if newly created)
written in the period 1964-1977 are still under copyright -- I would
need to double check their exact terms, but I think it is something
like 100 years from date of creation, or 70 years from date of
authorized publication (if published after 2001), whichever is later.

So it is far from clear that this code is not under copyright. The
question is what would now count as "publication" under the pre-1976
law. And of course, inf any author is not a US national, a whole
additional set of rules come in.

-John Marks

[Andrew Plotkin]

Post by Glenn P.,
But having said that, isn't the thing in the public domain already? I
mean, "I Am Not A Lawyer, BUT..." -- wasn't this code written prior to
1976, when (so far as I understand it) copyright required BOTH an
explicit registration, AND affixation of copyright notice; lasted only
28 years at a time; and had to be regularly renewed???

No, yes, yes, and renewal would have been automatic. See
<http://library.dts.edu/Pages/RM/Helps/copyright.shtml>

"All books initially copyrighted in the US from 1964 through 1977 have
had their copyrights automatically renewed (by law) and the copyrights
are still in force."

<http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/training/Hirtle_Public_Domain.htm>
has a very detailed and useful chart.

The lack of notice, however, is a killer. Through 1977, no notice ->
no copyright.

--Z

[Glenn P.,]

Post by Andrew Plotkin

Post by Glenn P.,
But having said that, isn't the thing in the public domain already? I
mean, "I Am Not A Lawyer, BUT..." -- wasn't this code written prior to
1976, when (so far as I understand it) copyright required BOTH an
explicit registration, AND affixation of copyright notice; lasted only
28 years at a time; and had to be regularly renewed???

No, yes, yes, and renewal would have been automatic. See
<http://library.dts.edu/Pages/RM/Helps/copyright.shtml>
"All books initially copyrighted in the US from 1964 through 1977 have
had their copyrights automatically renewed (by law) and the copyrights
are still in force."
<http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/training/Hirtle_Public_Domain.htm>
has a very detailed and useful chart.
The lack of notice, however, is a killer. Through 1977, no notice ->
no copyright.

I am obliged to point out that the matter is not quite as clear-cut as you
make it sound, because until the revisions of 1976, copyright law did not
explicitly recognize computer programs. (Even in the above quote, you can
only mention "books".) I very distinctly recall -- I was there, you know! --
that there was a serious debate at the time as to whether computer programs
fell within the purview of copyright at all, or whether, as methods of
procedure, they fell more appropriately under patent law.

I am also obliged to point out the two words you have (perhaps intentionally,
and perhaps not) glossed over: "initially copyrighted". The question of whether
"Colossal Cave" was EVER copyrighted, whether between 1964 and 1977, or at any
other time, still remains open.

My own considered opinion (for whatever that is worth, given that "I Am Not
A Lawyer, BUT...") is that "Colossal Cave" is not now, nor has it ever been,
copyrighted, and that it therefore lies within the Public Domain.

I add also that it is crystal clear those in charge of the IFArchive share
this viewpoint, in that their action of putting it up within the Archive
itself is, absent explicit permission, utterly inconsistent with the view
that it lies under copyright.

-- >>>>> "Glenn P.," <C128UserDELETE-***@FVI.Net> <<<<<
-----------------------------------------
"Memoria tenete hanc esse Fabulam et omnino per Iocum et per Simulationem,
itaque te esse non credere verbum solum etsi verum est." [Infantes Aquarum]

:: Take Note Of The Spam Block On My E-Mail Address! ::

[Andrew Plotkin]

Post by Glenn P.,

Post by Andrew Plotkin
<http://library.dts.edu/Pages/RM/Helps/copyright.shtml>
"All books initially copyrighted in the US from 1964 through 1977 have
had their copyrights automatically renewed (by law) and the copyrights
are still in force."
<http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/training/Hirtle_Public_Domain.htm>
has a very detailed and useful chart.
The lack of notice, however, is a killer. Through 1977, no notice ->
no copyright.

I am obliged to point out that the matter is not quite as clear-cut as you
make it sound, because until the revisions of 1976, copyright law did not
explicitly recognize computer programs. (Even in the above quote, you can
only mention "books".) I very distinctly recall -- I was there, you know! --
that there was a serious debate at the time as to whether computer programs
fell within the purview of copyright at all, or whether, as methods of
procedure, they fell more appropriately under patent law.
I am also obliged to point out the two words you have (perhaps intentionally,
and perhaps not) glossed over: "initially copyrighted". The question of whether
"Colossal Cave" was EVER copyrighted, whether between 1964 and 1977, or at any
other time, still remains open.

I'm not glossing over them if I'm opining that it would be public
domain today *anyway*. :)

Post by Glenn P.,
My own considered opinion (for whatever that is worth, given that "I Am Not
A Lawyer, BUT...") is that "Colossal Cave" is not now, nor has it ever been,
copyrighted, and that it therefore lies within the Public Domain.
I add also that it is crystal clear those in charge of the IFArchive share
this viewpoint, in that their action of putting it up within the Archive
itself is, absent explicit permission, utterly inconsistent with the view
that it lies under copyright.

You use the words "crystal clear" and "utterly" like a vast and
weighty iron wall, falling from the sky, frosted with the chill of
space. That's not how life works.

The IF Archive has always had some material -- particularly the oldest
material -- which was contributed without any copyright license and
without any provenance. We cope with that, because that's how the
early IF community passed stuff around. And then the early
post-commercial community did it again. (The first non-proprietary
Z-code interpreters, for example, never had clear copyright licenses.)

Crowther's Adventure is old, historic, never commercial, and probably
public domain. Those are good reasons to keep it in the Archive. Newly
created stuff is held to a more strict standard, because people know
to pay more attention, and we can get in touch with them when
necessary. It's judgement calls in the end.

--Z

[j***@yahoo.com]

Post by Glenn P.,

Post by Andrew Plotkin

Post by Glenn P.,
But having said that, isn't the thing in the public domain already? I
mean, "I Am Not A Lawyer, BUT..." -- wasn't this code written prior to
1976, when (so far as I understand it) copyright required BOTH an
explicit registration, AND affixation of copyright notice; lasted only
28 years at a time; and had to be regularly renewed???

No, yes, yes, and renewal would have been automatic. See
<http://library.dts.edu/Pages/RM/Helps/copyright.shtml>
"All books initially copyrighted in the US from 1964 through 1977 have
had their copyrights automatically renewed (by law) and the copyrights
are still in force."
<http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/training/Hirtle_Public_Domain.htm>
has a very detailed and useful chart.
The lack of notice, however, is a killer. Through 1977, no notice ->
no copyright.

I am obliged to point out that the matter is not quite as clear-cut as you
make it sound, because until the revisions of 1976, copyright law did not
explicitly recognize computer programs. (Even in the above quote, you can
only mention "books".) I very distinctly recall -- I was there, you know! --
that there was a serious debate at the time as to whether computer programs
fell within the purview of copyright at all, or whether, as methods of
procedure, they fell more appropriately under patent law.
I am also obliged to point out the two words you have (perhaps intentionally,
and perhaps not) glossed over: "initially copyrighted". The question of whether
"Colossal Cave" was EVER copyrighted, whether between 1964 and 1977, or at any
other time, still remains open.
My own considered opinion (for whatever that is worth, given that "I Am Not
A Lawyer, BUT...") is that "Colossal Cave" is not now, nor has it ever been,
copyrighted, and that it therefore lies within the Public Domain.
I add also that it is crystal clear those in charge of the IFArchive share
this viewpoint, in that their action of putting it up within the Archive
itself is, absent explicit permission, utterly inconsistent with the view
that it lies under copyright.

I am also not a lawyer, but I have a fair amount of copyright
experience.. It is true that computer programs were not clearly
subject to copyright protection in the early 1970s, because no cases
had yet been decided on the subject. No court, as far as I know, ever
ruled that they were not subject to copyright. Since later decisions
have clearly held that programs are copyrightable, i suspect that a
case now, dealing with a program written in the 1970s, would treat it
much like a book written at that time.

Copyright, prior to 1978, attached on valid publication with notice.
Registration was strongly encouraged, but not required. Deposit of a
copy with the Library of congress was in theory required, but was not
a condition of copyright, unless the library of congress wrote to the
author or publisher demanding a copy and one was not provided -- in
that case, copyright could be voided, but this was almost never done.
In practice, the LoC almost never exercised its right to demand
copies. Copies had to be provided with registration, which was
required before an infringement suit could be filed.

Unpublished works, prior to 1978, did not need a copyright notice, and
the later publication of such a work would be fully protected.

Under the current rules (see >http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/
training/Hirtle_Public_Domain.htm>) "Unpublished works created before
1978 that were published after 1977 but before 2003" come into the
public domain in 2048 or 70 years after the author's death, whichever
is alter; "Unpublished works created before 1978 that were published
after 31 December 2002" as well as works never published by the
authority of the author or copyright holder are protected for the life
of the author plus 70 years. "Unpublished anonymous and pseudonymous
works," and works where the author's death date is unknown, are
protected for 120 years from creation.

Works published before 1978 without a notice are in the public domain.
Works published before 1978 (but after 1963) with a notice are
protected for 95 years from the date of publication.

So unless you can show that this source code was PUBLISHED, prior to
1978, by the author or with his permission, without a copyright
notice, it would be subject to copyright. (in the case of a suit for
infringement, the defendant would need to prove publication, as being
PD would be an affirmative defense) Note that *unauthorized*
publication would not place the work into the PD.

Given that the author seems to be reachable, it seems to me that the
safest legal step, and the most morally proper step, would be to
contact him, and ask for permission. It is unlikely that this work has
significant commercial value, so he will probably not object. And IMO
it would be the *right thing* to do, even if the code is legally in
the public domain.

-John Marks

[Glenn P.,]

Post by j***@yahoo.com
Given that the author seems to be reachable, it seems to me that the
safest legal step, and the most morally proper step, would be to
contact him, and ask for permission.

I have always assumed that both Woods and Crowther died, since I have
never seen or read anything by them since "Colossal Cave", not even
commentary. But if Crowther is ALIVE, then by all and every means,
contact him! I agree, 10,000%, that this is the proper ethical, moral,
and legal procedure. Indeed, if permission can be secured, it would
render the whole debate moot, because oftentimes what cannot be Taken
may be Given instead, and Permission cures -- even, retroactively
cures -- a nearly endless host of faults under copyright. :)

The best thing (for us) would be for him to explicitly release it into
the Public Domain, but even retaining rights but GPL'ing it would be a
major point gained!

-- >>>>> "Glenn P.," <C128UserDELETE-***@FVI.Net> <<<<<
-----------------------------------------
"Hoc in loco praecantato summa in Silva sito Puellus
et Ursus suus semper ludent."

:: Take Note Of The Spam Block On My E-Mail Address! ::

[k***@gmail.com]

Wow. I never realised there was so much, nor indeed still, interest in ADVENT. Albeit I'm several years behind in discovering this thread.

I have fond memories of playing Wood's version of ADVENT during the late '70's on the PDP-11. It was the first bit of (not my own) software I ever fiddled. Added a few extra passages to the game to get about easier. I still have my eight inch floppy of the game lying about somewhere.

In the early '90's I re-created a version in DBASE-III, from scratch. I had retained a printout of the data file since the '70's, so it was primarily an exercise in crunching the data. I never stuffed around with trying to convert language and syntax and datatypes.

Although I would have still been proficient in FORTRAN at the time, I don't recall if I even knew it was in that language. Then again, I didn't have a way to access the eight incher and, if I did, it wouldn't have contained the source code in any case.

It was just a matter a writing half a dozen modules for the main functions - Location description, Item location handling (You are a location - Inventory), Command Parsing, Navigation, Special Conditions & Events.

It came up much leaner, data-wise. I get the impression that a fair portion of the original data file was redundant padding due to using array data-sets. Certainly the navigation data was crunched to almost nothing. The original was exceptionally verbose.

[l***@gmail.com]

I actually know where will lives and I actually know his family. I saw the actual source code. It was so cool! I even got to play it!

[Trainy McTrainface]

Post by l***@gmail.com
I actually know where will lives and I actually know his family. I saw the actual source code. It was so cool! I even got to play it!

Cool, have him email me a copy, please. ;)
Kidding, but also not... I suppose there are books on game theory that break it all down and explain it better than me trying to remember code I haven't seen for 4 decades. Off to the library, I suppose, if such things still exist....

I'm learning Go programming, and it would be a fun rewrite as a server. Or Snipes. Anyone remember Snipes?

[Kerr-Mudd, John]

On Tue, 8 Aug 2023 15:11:42 -0700 (PDT)

Post by Trainy McTrainface

Post by l***@gmail.com
I actually know where will lives and I actually know his family. I saw the actual source code. It was so cool! I even got to play it!

Cool, have him email me a copy, please. ;)
Kidding, but also not... I suppose there are books on game theory that break it all down and explain it better than me trying to remember code I haven't seen for 4 decades. Off to the library, I suppose, if such things still exist....
I'm learning Go programming, and it would be a fun rewrite as a server. Or Snipes. Anyone remember Snipes?

Sure. Not quite the same as Colossal Cave/Advent

[dott.Piergiorgio]

Post by Glenn P.,
:> GPL It? :-P

Post by Litestar
Why not just put it in the public domain?

<<Scratches under the chin>> ...The person who located the code cannot do
either one, as only the original author (or one to whom he had explicity
given the rights) -- Crowther, in this case -- would have the authority
to do so. And the person who has located this code for us is, alas,
neither Crowther himself, nor a holder of assigned rights.
But having said that, isn't the thing in the public domain already? I
mean, "I Am Not A Lawyer, BUT..." -- wasn't this code written prior to
1976, when (so far as I understand it) copyright required BOTH an
explicit registration, AND affixation of copyright notice; lasted only
28 years at a time; and had to be regularly renewed???
Since Crowther (at least, to the best of my knowledge!) never did ANY
of these things, it seems to me that he never possessed ANY copyright
on the code to begin with, and therefore it would seem to have fallen
into the Public Domain long ago.

I'm wrong or Crowther himself has a web page with also his e-mail
address ? I think will be nice e-mailing him asking nicely about the
code and I guess he will gladly give permission to redistribuite... And
his commentary on the code will be very appreciated by all of us :)

ISTR that also Woods has webpage & public e-mail address

Best regards from Italy,
Dott. Piergiorgio.

[David Kinder]

Reading through the source code, what strikes me is how compact it all is:
just a shade over 700 lines, and how few of the puzzles require special-case
logic in the code. It's not easy to do *anything* interesting in that short
a space, let alone invent a game genre ...

David

[samwyse]

Post by d***@gmail.com
Accordingly, this paper analyzes
previously unpublished files recovered from a backup of Woods's
student account at Stanford, and documents an excursion to the real
Colossal Cave in Kentucky in 2005.

Holy mother of Elron! This is enough to make me break two years or so
of silent lurking! Way to go!

[m***@gmail.com]

Post by d***@gmail.com
Somewhere Nearby is Colossal Cave: Examining Will Crowther's Original
"Adventure" in Code and in Kentucky
Digital Humanities Quarterly, 1.1 (2007)

This is an amazing piece! Excellent detective work! Loved that early
PDP source code. I especially enjoyed the pictures paired with the
game text. I wonder if there are any photos from the original Cave
Research Foundation explorations in the early 1970s - it would be
great to see the original entrance as well as photos of Will and Pat
Crowther.

[Tim Mann]

Post by m***@gmail.com

Post by d***@gmail.com
Somewhere Nearby is Colossal Cave: Examining Will Crowther's Original
"Adventure" in Code and in Kentucky
Digital Humanities Quarterly, 1.1 (2007)

This is an amazing piece! Excellent detective work! Loved that early
PDP source code. I especially enjoyed the pictures paired with the
game text. I wonder if there are any photos from the original Cave
Research Foundation explorations in the early 1970s - it would be
great to see the original entrance as well as photos of Will and Pat
Crowther.

Pat appears in a couple of pictures in "The Longest Cave" by Roger W.
Brucker and Richard A. Watson. This is an excellent book that I highly
recommend reading. I just checked, and I don't see Will in any of the
pictures.

(Also, I concur about what a great piece of work Dennis did here. I
sent him a private email about that but want to mention it here too!)

[R***@gmail.com]

I disagree on the development years being 1975-1976. I graduated from
WPI in 1974 and played 'Adventure' on their DEC-10, for at least a
year prior to gradualtion.

I believe that the date range of 1972-1973 is more accurate.

Bob Milk

Post by d***@gmail.com
Real locations in the cave and
several artifacts (such as an iron rod and an axe head) correspond to
their representation in Crowther's version; however, by May of 1977,
Woods had expanded the game to include numerous locations that he
invented, along with significant technical innovations (such as
scorekeeping and a player inventory). Sources that incorrectly date
Crowther's original to 1972 or 1974, or that identify it as a
cartographic data file with no game or fantasy elements, are sourced
thinly if at all. The new evidence establishes that Crowther wrote the
game during the 1975-76 academic year and probably abandoned it in
early 1976. The original game employed magic, humor, simple combat,
and basic puzzles, all of which Woods greatly expanded

[xonic]

pretty cutting edge.. i noticed in the first dat file f*ck was one of
the actions the character could do lol.. i never played this myself
but i was into Zork when it came out.. i miss those games.

[Eric Harmon]

In case anyone wants to try the original out without hassling with
fortran, I've brought up a telnet server running the Will Crowther
original. It may be buggy or crash given strange input (it's authentic
after all), but it should generally work out. Have fun with it, if it
gives me any trouble or doesn't seem to be working right I'll take it
down.

You'll want to telnet to: c63.be.

Those of you in Windows can open a command prompt and run:

telnet c63.be

Thanks to everyone involved in finding and porting the code!

Enjoy,
Eric

Post by d***@gmail.com
I started working on this article in 2000, thinking I'd be able to
slap something together for the 25th anniversary of Colossal Cave
Adventure. But writing it has turned out to be an addictive Babelfish
puzzle. The preliminary research I did turned into the IF
Bibliography, which also led to a glossary for the IF Theorybook. The
book is in cryonic sleep at the moment but the glossary thrives at the
IF WIki.
Reading the post Andrew Plotkin published several years ago about all
the cave research he did in preparation for writing Hunter, in
Darkness made me start daydreaming about an actual visit to the real
Colossal Cave was a possibility, and watching a library copy of
Raiders of the Lost Ark made me fantasize about finding Crowther's
original source code.
This year marks the 30th anniversary of Adventure, and I think the
article was worth the wait.
The full text (with about 40 photos from in and around the real
Colossal Cave) is available online. See the link after the abstract.
Somewhere Nearby is Colossal Cave: Examining Will Crowther's Original
"Adventure" in Code and in Kentucky
Digital Humanities Quarterly, 1.1 (2007)
Abstract
Because so little primary historical work has been done on the classic
text computer game "Colossal Cave Adventure", academic and popular
references to it frequently perpetuate inaccuracies. "Adventure" was
the first in a series of text-based games ("interactive fiction") that
emphasize exploring, puzzles, and story, typically in a fantasy
setting; these games had a significant cultural impact in the late
1970s and a significant commercial presence in the early 1980s. Will
Crowther based his program on a real cave in Kentucky; Don Woods
expanded this version significantly. The expanded work has been
examined as an occasion for narrative encounters (Buckles 1985) and as
an aesthetic masterpiece of logic and utility (Knuth 1998); however,
previous attempts to assess the significance of "Adventure" remain
incomplete without access to Crowther's original source code and
Crowther's original source cave. Accordingly, this paper analyzes
previously unpublished files recovered from a backup of Woods's
student account at Stanford, and documents an excursion to the real
Colossal Cave in Kentucky in 2005. In addition, new interviews with
Crowther, Woods, and their associates (particularly members of
Crowther's family) provide new insights on the precise nature of
Woods's significant contributions. Real locations in the cave and
several artifacts (such as an iron rod and an axe head) correspond to
their representation in Crowther's version; however, by May of 1977,
Woods had expanded the game to include numerous locations that he
invented, along with significant technical innovations (such as
scorekeeping and a player inventory). Sources that incorrectly date
Crowther's original to 1972 or 1974, or that identify it as a
cartographic data file with no game or fantasy elements, are sourced
thinly if at all. The new evidence establishes that Crowther wrote the
game during the 1975-76 academic year and probably abandoned it in
early 1976. The original game employed magic, humor, simple combat,
and basic puzzles, all of which Woods greatly expanded. While Crowther
remained largely faithful to the geography of the real cave, his
original did introduce subtle changes to the environment in order to
improve the gameplay.
Will Crowther's original FORTRAN source codehttp://jerz.setonhill.edu/if/crowther/
Full Articlehttp://brain.lis.uiuc.edu:2323/opencms/export/sites/default/dhq/vol/0...
The above URL is a test site, but one of the journal editors has
posted this URL to his blog, so I'm considering the article officially
published now.
I imagine the article will eventually occur on the journal's main
site, at
http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/001/2/000009.html

[lorin.rowe]

Post by d***@gmail.com
I started working on this article in 2000, thinking I'd be able to
slap something together for the 25th anniversary of Colossal Cave
.... stuff deleted

Interesting ... As many years ago I recall plainly that the original
Colossal Cave was written in a University language called Muddle
originally. Another person I believe translated Adventure into
Fortran.
Even latter I wrote it in C! My how times change.

I am not taking away from the article, but suggesting there is a
ways to go to get back to the original language. :-)

[Andrew Plotkin]

Post by lorin.rowe

Post by d***@gmail.com
I started working on this article in 2000, thinking I'd be able to
slap something together for the 25th anniversary of Colossal Cave
.... stuff deleted

Interesting ... As many years ago I recall plainly that the original
Colossal Cave was written in a University language called Muddle
originally.

No. Muddle (or MDL) was used by the MIT students who originally created
Zork. They were inspired by Colossal Cave, but they were writing a new
game.

--Z

[lorin.rowe]

Post by Andrew Plotkin

Post by lorin.rowe

Post by d***@gmail.com
I started working on this article in 2000, thinking I'd be able to
slap something together for the 25th anniversary of Colossal Cave
.... stuff deleted

Interesting ... As many years ago I recall plainly that the original
Colossal Cave was written in a University language called Muddle
originally.

No. Muddle (or MDL) was used by the MIT students who originally created
Zork. They were inspired by Colossal Cave, but they were writing a new
game.

Thanks for the correction. When you go that far back you have to
scratch your
head a bit.

[rpresser]

Post by d***@gmail.com
I started working on this article in 2000, thinking I'd be able to
slap something together for the 25th anniversary of Colossal Cave
Adventure. But writing it has turned out to be an addictive Babelfish
puzzle. The preliminary research I did turned into the IF
Bibliography, which also led to a glossary for the IF Theorybook. The
book is in cryonic sleep at the moment but the glossary thrives at the
IF WIki.

Congratulations on what apparently is a fantastic achievement.

Post by d***@gmail.com
Will Crowther's original FORTRAN source codehttp://jerz.setonhill.edu/if/crowther/
Full Articlehttp://brain.lis.uiuc.edu:2323/opencms/export/sites/default/dhq/vol/0...
The above URL is a test site, but one of the journal editors has
posted this URL to his blog, so I'm considering the article officially
published now.
I imagine the article will eventually occur on the journal's main
site, at
http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/001/2/000009.html

Unfortunately,although the FORTRAN code is still there, the test site
is now down but the article is not up at that main site link, either.
Any other links available?

[m***@gmail.com]

Post by rpresser

Post by d***@gmail.com
I started working on this article in 2000, thinking I'd be able to
slap something together for the 25th anniversary of Colossal Cave
Adventure. ...

Unfortunately,although the FORTRAN code is still there, the test site
is now down but the article is not up at that main site link, either.
Any other links available?

I contacted the Digital Humanities Quarterly editor (Julia Flanders)
today and here is what she replied:

Thanks for asking--the link to the Jerz article was posted somewhat
prematurely, and links (linked) to an internal draft site, not to the
final publication. The actual published version of the article will
be available at the DHQ site by the end of this month, at
http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/001/2/000009.html

If you can spread this information around we'd be grateful! the
internal URL got widely disseminated before we could correct it.

Best wishes, Julia

Julia Flanders
Editor, DHQ
Brown University

[d***@gmail.com]

Post by m***@gmail.com
I contacted the Digital Humanities Quarterly editor (Julia Flanders)
Thanks for asking--the link to the Jerz article was posted somewhat
prematurely, and links (linked) to an internal draft site, not to the
final publication. The actual published version of the article will
be available at the DHQ site by the end of this month, athttp://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/001/2/000009.html

I have also asked the editors to forward the draft address to the
final site.

[d***@gmail.com]

Post by rpresser

Post by d***@gmail.com
I started working on this article in 2000, thinking I'd be able to
slap something together for the 25th anniversary of Colossal Cave
Adventure. But writing it has turned out to be an addictive Babelfish
puzzle. The preliminary research I did turned into the IF
Bibliography, which also led to a glossary for the IF Theorybook. The
book is in cryonic sleep at the moment but the glossary thrives at the
IF WIki.

Congratulations on what apparently is a fantastic achievement.

Post by d***@gmail.com
Will Crowther's original FORTRAN source codehttp://jerz.setonhill.edu/if/crowther/
Full Articlehttp://brain.lis.uiuc.edu:2323/opencms/export/sites/default/dhq/vol/0...
The above URL is a test site, but one of the journal editors has
posted this URL to his blog, so I'm considering the article officially
published now.
I imagine the article will eventually occur on the journal's main
site, at
http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/001/2/000009.html

Unfortunately,although the FORTRAN code is still there, the test site
is now down but the article is not up at that main site link, either.
Any other links available?

David Kinder just e-mailed me to say he has placed a copy of the
article on the IF archive at

http://mirror.ifarchive.org/if-archive/articles/original_adventure.zip
(2.7M)