Re: [TUHS] First machine to run rogue?

[Matt Day <fjarlq@gmail.com>]

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Quoting from David Craddock's book, Dungeon Hacks (2015), pages 34-35:

> By the time Toy and Wichman started at UC Santa Cruz, BSD UNIX had entered
> widespread usage across UC campuses and was branching out to other schools.
> Each new version of BSD, released on cassette tape, included handy programs
> written by Joy and other hackers. One program was curses, written by Ken
> Arnold. Arnold had written curses according to the UNIX creed: a simple
> tool fashioned for a specific purpose. Wielding curses like a paintbrush,
> users could place text such as letters, numbers, and symbols at any
> location on the screen.



The moment he used curses, Toy saw its potential. In 1980, he went to
> Wichman and suggested they use curses to create a graphical adventure game
> with a twist. Unlike Colossal Cave Adventure and its derivatives, their
> game would construct brand new environments and challenges every time. An
> avid Dungeons & Dragons player, he invented a fantasy-themed setting and
> premise. Players would assume the identity of an adventurer who entered the
> Dungeons of Doom, a series of levels filled with monsters and treasure.



Wichman loved the idea and dubbed the game Rogue. "I think the name just
> came to me. Names needed to be short because you invoked a program by
> typing its name in a command line. I liked the idea of a rogue. We were
> coming from a Dungeons & Dragons background, but we were creating a
> single-player game. You weren't going down into the dungeon with a party.
> The idea was that this is a person going off on his or her own. It captured
> the theme very succinctly."



Apropos of UNIX, Toy chose to write Rogue in the C language. C produced
> fast code, while BASIC was slower and meant for smaller programs. Wichman,
> still a few steps behind Toy in programming prowess, learned C by watching
> Toy program their game. "The early alpha versions of Rogue were probably
> all my code, but Glenn [Wichman] made lots of contributions in terms of
> design," Toy recalled. "I think it's quite fair to say that the game was a
> pretty straight collaboration between Glenn [Wichman], Ken [Arnold], and me
> by the time it was done. I feel pretty good about that."



Toy and Wichman realized they wouldn't be able to stay at school during all
> hours to write their game. Fortunately, they didn't need to. As employees
> of the computer science division, they had special lab privileges. Setting
> up an ADM-3a terminal in their apartment, they could dial into the VAX
> 11/780 shunted off in a basement somewhere at UC Santa Cruz. The connection
> was established through their 300-baud modem -- a device that would take
> several minutes to transmit the text on an average-length Wikipedia page
> today -- enabling them to write the vast majority of Rogue from the comfort
> of their apartment.


Craddock's notes explain that the quotes of Michael Toy and Glenn Wichman
"come from interviews conducted via phone, Skype, and email over 2012-2014."

I think you must be right about the first machine being something running
BSD UNIX.

Matt

On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 8:07 PM Dan Cross <crossd@gmail.com> wrote:

> What was the first machine to run rogue? I understand that it was written
> by Glenn Wichman and Michael Toy at UC Santa Cruz ca. 1980, using the
> `curses` library (Ken Arnold's original, not Mary Ann's rewrite). I've seen
> at least one place that indicates it first ran on 6th Edition, but that
> doesn't sound right to me. The first reference I can find in BSD is in 2.79
> ("rogue.doc"), which also appears to be the first release to ship curses.
>
> Anyone have any info? Thanks!
>
>         - Dan C.
>
>

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