[TUHS] Searching for game history

[TUHS] Searching for game history

[Brian "Beej" Hall]

Hi everyone,

I'm here with a Unix/Bell Labs history question at the suggestion of
BWK. I have a bit of a computing mystery on my hands...

_Conquest_ is an old game that apparently came to life in Bell Labs, but
no one seems to know anything more about it, including who the
author is.

The instructions for the game[1] contain the following text at the
bottom:

  Amiga port by Bob Shimbo, orginal author unknown.

  This game started life on a UNIX system at Bell Labs.  It was ported
  to CP/M 80 by a Scott Kamin.  The manual was thrown together in an
  afternoon. (Typos and corrections welcome).

  You can reach me through Compuserve (UID 70260,231) or TBBS of
  colorado (303)-693-4735.

The LHA archive for the Amiga was packaged in 1986.

I did get in touch with Bob Shimbo, but he writes:

  You can imagine how long ago I did that port given I referenced my
  Compuserve account.  I don't recall where I found the code originally.
  Sorry.  We've been through 3 house moves since then and I don't know
  where any references might have gotten to.

Scott Kamin--I found a reference to someone by his name in the CP/M
world in the 80s in New Jersey. (Internet Archive has lots of old
computer magazine scans and his name showed up in the classified ads.)
And a search turned up a snail mail address for someone in the right age
range living a few miles from the business listed in the ad. A Hail Mary
snail mail got no reply.

Does any of it ring a bell, by any chance? I've begun the work of
getting it to run on modern systems[2], and it would be great to be able
to include more history in the man page.

Cheers,
-Beej

[1] https://github.com/beejjorgensen/conquest/blob/master/instructions.txt
[2] https://github.com/beejjorgensen/conquest/

-- 
Brian "Beej Jorgensen" Hall
beej@beej.us  https://beej.us/

[TUHS] Re: Searching for game history

[Jonathan Gray]

On Mon, Apr 28, 2025 at 06:12:55PM -0700, Brian "Beej" Hall wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> 
> I'm here with a Unix/Bell Labs history question at the suggestion of
> BWK. I have a bit of a computing mystery on my hands...
> 
> _Conquest_ is an old game that apparently came to life in Bell Labs, but
> no one seems to know anything more about it, including who the
> author is.
> 
> The instructions for the game[1] contain the following text at the
> bottom:
> 
>   Amiga port by Bob Shimbo, orginal author unknown.
> 
>   This game started life on a UNIX system at Bell Labs.  It was ported
>   to CP/M 80 by a Scott Kamin.  The manual was thrown together in an
>   afternoon. (Typos and corrections welcome).
> 
>   You can reach me through Compuserve (UID 70260,231) or TBBS of
>   colorado (303)-693-4735.
> 
> The LHA archive for the Amiga was packaged in 1986.
> 
> I did get in touch with Bob Shimbo, but he writes:
> 
>   You can imagine how long ago I did that port given I referenced my
>   Compuserve account.  I don't recall where I found the code originally.
>   Sorry.  We've been through 3 house moves since then and I don't know
>   where any references might have gotten to.
> 
> Scott Kamin--I found a reference to someone by his name in the CP/M
> world in the 80s in New Jersey. (Internet Archive has lots of old
> computer magazine scans and his name showed up in the classified ads.)
> And a search turned up a snail mail address for someone in the right age
> range living a few miles from the business listed in the ad. A Hail Mary
> snail mail got no reply.
> 
> Does any of it ring a bell, by any chance? I've begun the work of
> getting it to run on modern systems[2], and it would be great to be able
> to include more history in the man page.

An implementation of the Stellar Conquest board game?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_Conquest

[TUHS] Re: Searching for game history

[Brian "Beej" Hall]

On Tue, Apr 29, 2025 at 04:25:52PM +1000, Jonathan Gray wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 28, 2025 at 06:12:55PM -0700, Brian "Beej" Hall wrote:
> > _Conquest_ is an old game that apparently came to life in Bell Labs,
> > but no one seems to know anything more about it, including who the
> > author is.
>
> An implementation of the Stellar Conquest board game?
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_Conquest

Oooo, that seems like a good lead--very, very similar. The games are
contemporary, too.

I'd classify it as "highly probably". :)

Now I gotta find a copy of that game. I found a scan of the instructions
and there are photos of the game board itself out there.

Thanks!

Still dying to know who wrote the computer version. I can't help but
wonder if it really came out of Bell Labs or maybe that's just a
mistake.

Cheers,
-Beej

-- 
Brian "Beej Jorgensen" Hall
beej@beej.us  https://beej.us/

[TUHS] Re: Searching for game history

[Matt Day]

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Looks like one of many games that were influenced by Empire, originally
written by John Daleske in early 1973 at Iowa State for the PLATO system.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_(1973_video_game)

On Tue, Apr 29, 2025 at 10:46 AM Brian "Beej" Hall <beej@beej.us> wrote:

> On Tue, Apr 29, 2025 at 04:25:52PM +1000, Jonathan Gray wrote:
> > On Mon, Apr 28, 2025 at 06:12:55PM -0700, Brian "Beej" Hall wrote:
> > > _Conquest_ is an old game that apparently came to life in Bell Labs,
> > > but no one seems to know anything more about it, including who the
> > > author is.
> >
> > An implementation of the Stellar Conquest board game?
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_Conquest
>
> Oooo, that seems like a good lead--very, very similar. The games are
> contemporary, too.
>
> I'd classify it as "highly probably". :)
>
> Now I gotta find a copy of that game. I found a scan of the instructions
> and there are photos of the game board itself out there.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Still dying to know who wrote the computer version. I can't help but
> wonder if it really came out of Bell Labs or maybe that's just a
> mistake.
>
> Cheers,
> -Beej
>
> --
> Brian "Beej Jorgensen" Hall
> beej@beej.us  https://beej.us/
>

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