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→A Short History
===A Short History===
Time fljes flies. The copyright date onmy game, Pirate's Adventure, reads1978. It seems like yesterday, but ithas been two and a half years since Istarted on my Adventures . . .At the time I was working as asystems programmer for StrombergCarlson when I was first introducedto the classic Adventure game writtenby Crowther and Woods to run on aDEC (Digital Equipment Corporation)PDP-10. After playing for onlya few minutes I was hooked. It tookalmost ten days of early-morning andlate-evening sessions before Iachieved the coveted score of 350 andthe title of Grand Master. I had doneit--.I was a bona fide adventurer! Yetit seemed unfair that such afascinating game was restricted tosuch an expensive machine.Back then, I had just gotten myRadio Shack TRS-80 Level II computer,and (having recently finishedPly backgammon program) I waslooking for another good game towrite. The concept of · characterstrings intrigued me, and I wanted agame that used them. (Up to thatpoint, I had programmed primarily inFORTRAN and assembly language,neither of which can handle stringseasily.)Adventure seemed to fit my needsexactly . . But I didn't want to copysomeone else's program, and I wasafraid I wouldn't get much of anAdventure in a 16 K-byte BASICcomputer-especially when the FORTRANversion I played took about300 K bytes!I mentioned the idea of gettingsome sort of Adventure into my smallmachine to friends; fortunately, I wasnot daunted by their laughter. Afterall, I could remember when it wassupposedly impossible to get.a BASICint~rpreter to run on an 8080
At the time I was working as a systems programmer for Stromberg Carlson when I was first introduced to the classic Adventure game written by Crowther and Woods to run on a DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) PDP-10. After playing for only a few minutes I was hooked. It took almost ten days of early-morning and late-evening sessions before I achieved the coveted score of 350 and the title of Grand Master. I had done it--I was a bona fide adventurer! Yet it seemed unfair that such a fascinating game was restricted to such an expensive machine.
Back then, I had just gotten my Radio Shack TRS-80 Level II computer, and (having recently finished my backgammon program) I was looking for another good game to write. The concept of character strings intrigued me, and I wanted a game that used them. (Up to that point, I had programmed primarily in FORTRAN and assembly language, neither of which can handle strings easily.)
Adventure seemed to fit my needs exactly. But I didn't want to copy someone else's program, and I was afraid I wouldn't get much of an Adventure in a 16 K-byte BASIC computer-especially when the FORTRAN version I played took about 300 K bytes!
I mentioned the idea of getting some sort of Adventure into my small machine to friends; fortunately, I was not daunted by their laughter. After all, I could remember when it was supposedly impossible to get a BASIC interpreter to run on an 8080
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