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First Graphics Game Written On/For a 16-Bit Home PC
Posted by
Soulskill
on Mon May 04, 2009 09:41 PM
from the it's-an-e-antique dept.
from the it's-an-e-antique dept.
The GPI writes with a story about Scott's Space Wars, a piece of gaming history:
"This game was written by the famous game author Scott Adams, who founded Adventure International, the first multimillion dollar PC game company. It was founded over 30 years ago and developed for early 8-bit home PCs, i.e. TRS-80, Apple II, Atari. Scott's Space Wars is the first graphics game that was ever written at home, for a 16-bit home computer. The original source code is available as photos of the original 1975 hand-written manuscript. The last purchaser of the manuscript paid $197,500 in 2005. A brief video shows how the game was played."
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Submission: First game written on / for a home 16 bit pc 1975 by Anonymous Coward
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I remember that game (Score:2, Funny)
It had better controls and playability than anything on the PS3 or XBOX 360.
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seriously?
No, not seriously.
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Are you kidding? Rollins, for all of his stomp-and-burn rocker image, is one hysterical, self-deprecating motherfucker. Have you ever listened to his spoken word stuff? He's built like a brick shithouse, but he's a raging dork and he knows it. Your post, while well-written, is completely ungrounded in anything resembling fact.
Nice (Score:5, Interesting)
The first computer I ever saw in person and worked on was a TRS-80 model III. I was in the 7th grade and my junior high school had a lab with a bunch of them. I can remember playing games that looked very similar to the video. This was 1982, so it was probably something different, but the same idea, using letters and symbols. We learned basic in that class and did a little bit of graphics stuff ourselves. I don't remember it all that well now, but I do know that I loved it.
I enjoyed it enough that my dad bought the family a Commodore Vic-20. That was a big deal as our family didn't have a ton of money. I don't think we even owned a vcr yet at that point. I spent tons of time on that thing, and took all the classes I could get in jr. high and high school. It really was a cool time to be messing with home computers. I had a friend in the 8th grade that wrote a text adventure and was selling it out of a local computer store. He didn't make a lot but it was just fun to be able to do that kind of stuff. I'm not sure if there is a similar environment or feel like that anywhere any more. (Or more likely - it's somewhere I'm just not in it, too old to see it, etc.)
What I learned from my TRS-80 MC-10 (Score:2)
My first computer was a TRS-80 MC-10.
What I learned it after about an hour of playing with the basic on it, was that I needed a better computer.
It is a lesson I am still using almost every day, as I sit at my duel core processor with 6 gigs of ram and raid 0. I still need a better computer.
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gigs of ram and raid 0. I still need a better computer.
The mnemonic I learned was : RAID 0 - The 0 stands for the amount of bits of data that are safe in the event of a single hard drive failure.
RAID 5 may serve you better my friend.
Re:Nice (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not sure if there is a similar environment or feel like that anywhere any more. (Or more likely - it's somewhere I'm just not in it, too old to see it, etc.)
I've been thinking about this, and I think it was so much fun because you could do anything anyone else could. Coming up with cool new ways to arrange colored text on the screen, interesting ways to use the arrow keys, new different kinds of menuing systems, if you could see it (and it often was cool), you could reproduce it. And a single person could make something very cool in little time, it was just a matter of imagining it.
Nowadays, it takes an artist or a team of artists several months to make something cool, and only the smallest projects can be made by a single person. It is so much harder to manipulate what happens on the screen (and this is coming from a person who is an experienced programmer), and it is not as easy to change someone else's source code. You may have a cool idea, but good luck implementing it alone.
So many things have changed. Fortunately more powerful computers make up for it.
Parent
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Well, Kongregate(.com) is the best example of small, very nice, creative things, that one person can do alone. And I dare to say, that they beat many large multi-million games in terms of pure fun and addictiveness. If only they would support other plug-ins, like Java applets, and maybe even things like the Quake live 3D engine...
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Re:Nice (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
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It's not entirely the same, but I really cut my teeth on programming on a TI-83+ graphing calculator. It had a variant of BASIC, fairly simple graphics capabilities, and it was fairly easy to pick up.
Incidentally,I think that environment was my first exposure to the ideas of open source software, too. Programs could be shared easily, by linking calculators, and being interpreted, all programs came with source. I certainly learned a bit by reading programs from other students, or downloaded from the internet
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That is patently untrue. I know that people like to say that sort of thing, but whether you care to admit it or not, regulated industry is a lot easier to get into than a system where the big guys call all of the shots.
Additionally it depends what sort of business you're talking about, a great deal of businesses are not like you're describing.
But then again, why question what the elites of industry want, I mean it's not like they're acting solely for themselves.
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Additionally it depends what sort of business you're talking about, a great deal of businesses are not like you're describing.
Basically, anything where you're in competition with a corporation. Sure, starting up a restaurant or hair salon isn't any different than it was 60 years ago. But try starting up a software firm? A movie studio? How about you try starting up a broadband internet business?
Anywhere there's any amount of money, expect to be blown out of the water. A frivolous lawsuit or a herd of lobbyists doesn't cost a corporation anything, but it costs YOU your business, and your car, and your home...
Re:Nice (Score:5, Informative)
Can you be more specific about what's so hard about starting up a software firm? I've been a part of three startups, and I'm now independent and working with another small company, and none have encountered any problems whatsoever with lawsuits or lobbyists. What exactly did you have in mind?
Also, people start movie production companies all the time (every independent movie that comes out starts their own, it seems) and they don't have any problems. A close friend of mine is a movie cameraman on various big-budget Hollywood films, and he sometimes works with smaller independents just for the hell of it. Never mentioned any legal issues.
Parent
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. But try starting up a software firm?
Wait, why do you think this is so hard? I've worked at two different software companies that started within the last seven years. One has been reasonably successful, and the other is struggling along. Many many software companies start every year. A lot of them fail for various reasons, many are successful. Some phenomenally so. Google was nothing more than a startup, literally in a garage, in 1998. Now, of course, it is a multi-billion dollar company. It happens over and over again, and there is no
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It happens over and over again, and there is nothing to stop you from doing it as well.
the crushing weight of regulation has so far prevented adoption of my rearden-fill bean bag chair.
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I have no clue what a rearden-fill beanbag chair is; mainly what rearden might be.
'rearden', I suspect, would be a reference [wikipedia.org] to a character in the 1957 novel 'Atlas Shrugged'
The novel is known for it's viewpoint on capitalism, and unregulated markets, as the ideal. I expect the reference works into that.
Personally, it's one of the few books I've started reading but didn't finish. The side characters/'bad guys' at the beginning of the book were just way too fake. If I'm going to read a novel that thick, and give its philosophy and arguments real weight, I don't want to wade through s
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Nonsense. Games in particular. My company's nearly done with our proprietary 3D engine technology (we've got an absolute whiz with the graphics side of things, keep him in beer and pizza and he'll be implementing "DirectX 10 only" stuff in SM2 all night), and we've already got licensees lined up, as well as two indie-game titles around 70% complete. It's not that hard if you have a clue.
you call those graphics? (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean at least space wars at least had real graphics and not a bunch of ASCII characters. I guess this qualifies for some minor footnote in history, somewhere, somehow, but I'm really at a loss as to where. While we are at it do we know who A) wrote the first 8-bit PC game? B) Wrote the first 32-bit PC game? and C) Wrote the first 64-bit PC game? Ok...now how about the first C64 game? What about the first PC game? What about the first Apple II game? I could probably think of a million "firsts."
Any takers? :P
the first commodore 64 game (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
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thanks. that made me laugh.
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Each person has their own firsts in gaming history. Especially us geeks. 1975 was 8 years before my birth, but I'm still interested. I never played this game, and doubt I ever will.
I still wanna know about it though. My first gaming experience was playing pong on some insignificant console around '88/89. Time moved slowly in my computer childhood. I didn't even realize the internet existed until '97, and didn't get my first taste until '99.
I love the history of computers as much as I love the history
Re:you call those graphics? (Score:4, Informative)
A) wrote the first 8-bit PC game? B) Wrote the first 32-bit PC game? and C) Wrote the first 64-bit PC game? Ok...now how about the first C64 game? What about the first PC game? What about the first Apple II game? I could probably think of a million "firsts."
First 8-bit PC game and first Apple II game are probably the same: Steve Wozniak's reimplementation of Breakout in Integer BASIC.
Parent
old != classic (Score:5, Insightful)
Just because a game is old, doesn't mean it's a classic. A classic is a game which stands as a pinnacle representative of its type, an archetypal game that defined or created a genre, or a game so supremely crafted and so well-loved, that its appeal transcends its era.
Graphics are over rated. (Score:2, Insightful)
xyzzy!!!
good memories (Score:4, Interesting)
Although utterly mediocre (at best) by comparison with the work of his contemporary Infocom, Scott Adams' adventure games, complete with typos, tacky jokes/puns, outright bugs, and illogical "solutions", were endearing in their own way.
Spent quite some time playing Adventureland; Voodoo Castle (with the periodically exploding test tubes which you needed to wear a suit of armor to carry); and The Count on a VIC-20 with and without my family as a child, and I have many fond memories.
> smoke cigarette
OK. There's a coughin (sic) in the room.
> open coffin
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Cool! Like I said, the solutions aren't exactly logical, so no matter how smart/good you are at Infocom-type adventures (and I'm not), it'll probably take you a while, due to trial-and-error and "wtf?"-moments.
I'd start with either The Count or Voodoo Castle since they're a little more sophisticated/coherent than Adventureland. And feel free to have a walkthrough at hand. Seriously though, it's mostly nostalgia at this point. Infocom has aged well - Scott Adams not so much.
And this is meaningful, why? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:And this is meaningful, why? (Score:4, Interesting)
If you had an Apple II before 1974, then you had something a lot more interesting than an Apple II on your hands.
AFAIK the only 16-bit computers outside the defense sector were at Hewlett-Packard. This is the first homebrew 16-bit machine I've seen.
Parent
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Re:And this is meaningful, why? (Score:4, Informative)
Tennis For Two [wikipedia.org]
Created in 1958 on an analogue computer. ANALOGUE!
Parent
A Pre-Adventure Scot Adams game? (Score:2)
Seriously, I wonder if there's an image. I have both Apple II and TRS-80 emulators.
I am not at all sure (Score:2)
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The IMP 16 processor (Score:2)
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That was interesting -- the ad your brother links to says that a basic model was $825, more depending on memory and options. Going to an inflation calculator ( http://www.westegg.com/inflation/infl.cgi [westegg.com] ) shows that it would have cost $3266.19 in 2008 dollars. That was once upon a time, quite a pricey machine.
Should add "on record" to that claim (Score:4, Insightful)
Its the first graphics game written on/for a 16-bit home pc on record. There's always the possibility that someone wrote one before Scott Adams and didn't "publish" their work.
Not the first.. (Score:2)
While this may be the first game for a 16-bit personal computer, I don't believe it is the first game for any personal computer.
I will offer a more likely contender: TARG for the Processor Technology SOL-20. I recall typing this game (and several others I've forgotten) into my SOL back in 1975. TARG became available commercially on a cassette called GAMEPAC 1, I just happened to have the GAMEPAC 1 manual sitting here and it's copyrighted 1977.
Since the article claims sometime in 1975 as the "release' of Spa
manuscript purchase price isn't credible (Score:5, Interesting)
I call shenanigans on the claimed $197,500 purchase price. The whois data for the web site [exoticsciences.com] says that it's controlled by Richard Adams himself. It looks like he's also the author of the Wikipedia pages about himself and his company.
I have no problem with the guy writing about himself in the third person, but I can't bring myself to believe that he paid his brother six figures for a twelve-page program listing.
Wasn't 1979's TI-99/4 the first 16 bit home comp? (Score:2)
Hardcore: Pre-keyboard Program Entry (Score:4, Interesting)
After reading the story, this sounds like a sure-fire "Outliers" scenario. The Adams brothers lived near Cape Canaveral. Richard constructed a video camera as an adolescent, before building a custom 16-bit computer from scratch, when all of the kits were strictly 8-bit. Richard, Scott, and Eric programmed the system initially from front panel switches, until Richard build a keyboard, based on existing designs. Just as Bill Gates created Altair BASIC at what was most likely the earliest possible moment, so with the Adams brothers getting their start.
It would be interesting to know what the family, school, and social background that gave them the shot at such an early entre into digital hacking.
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Though I remember once during the 80s my big brother deliberately hid my workbook and I couldnt finish my project.
I suppose youd call that a denial of service attack now.
Re:So (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the third time in this topic I am trying to make this point: THIS IS NOT A "GRAPHICS" GAME! It is a text-mode game, set in the 16x32 low-resolution text mode. There is really a huge difference between text and graphics modes!
I am all for giving credit where it is due, but this game gets no credit for being "graphics". It was not. The methodology was completely different, and actual graphics games were much more difficult to do.
Parent
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Depending on platform text and graphics mode might not have been so different.
The TI99/4A, for example, had a fairly standard process to redefine characters. Even the reference guide had a short basic program to change a text character into a little jumping man animation. They weren't true sprites, but with some cleverness could do many of the same things.
The 8-bit Atari had player missile graphics with similar functionality.
Re:So (Score:5, Funny)
This is the third time in this topic I am trying to make this point:
Can't sleep, huh?
Parent