Historical Infocom Trivia
Neal W. Miller
I was just looking through my back issues of The New Zork Times, which was
forced to change to The Status Line in 1986 due to some nasty lawyers on
retainer from another popular newspaper. Back in the summer of 1983, Infocom
started listing prices for their games, and the machines on which they ran.
In their first price list (summer '83), here are the systems supported:
Apple ][ (32k, 16-sector)
Atari 400/800 (32k, 16-sector)
IBM PC (48k)
TI Professional
Commodore 64 (disk) - I suppose this is as opposed to tape -
TRS-80 Model 1 (32k and disk)
TRS-80 Model 3 (32k and disk)
DEC Rainbow
NEC PC-8000 (56k, CP/M)
NEC APC (CP/M-86)
CP/M (48k, 8" disk) - Zork I on a 8" disk must be a collectors item for sure -
PDP-11 (RT-11, RX01 disk or - I wonder if my 486dx-50 can emulate an RT-11! -
under RT-11 emulator)
Interestingly enough, the games for the last three listed machines are $10
more than the same games for the other computers. Also, Zork I was not
available for either of the TRS-80 computers.
Also, the games listed (all of 'em) are:
Zork I,II,III, Starcross, Witness, Deadline, and Suspended
--------------------
By fall of '86, other supported computers included:
Apple Macintosh
Apricot - Wasn't this a British machine? Or was that 'Acorn'? -
Atari XL/LE (48k, 810 or 1050 disk)
Atari ST series
Commodore 128
Commodore Amiga
DEC Rainbow (MS-DOS option)
Epson QX-10
IBM series (96k)
Kaypro II (CP/M)
Osborne (CP/M)
TI-99/4A
TI-Professional
TRS-80 Color Computer
Brings back memories, eh?
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Neal Miller | Rensselaer Polytech. | "This Side Up - Not Plummet Please!"
mil...@rpi.edu | Troy, NY 12180 | - the box for my Taiwanese CPU fan
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Galasso Emilio N
They must have eventually put out a version of Zork I for the TRS-80, because
I finished all 3 Zorks on my TRS-80 Model IV (ah.. my first computer.. :). I'm
pretty sure it was running under the Model III's NEWDOS/80. Those were the
some of the best games I had ever played. Deadline was the only other game
I could get my hands on for the TRS-80 (finished that one too). I may have
had Starcross, but I don't think I got anywhere in that one. It's amazing
what made for a good adventure game back then, when the game itself wasn't
being overshadowed by dazzling graphics and sound.
I even have an "offical" Zork: The Underground Empire map around here. I
think it came from the Zork Users Group or something like that.
I can't imagine too many people playing those games any more... they were very
difficult at times so I'm sure the frustration level could be very high. In
today's games it's a pain to see the same scene, or hear the same speech, over
and over again while trying to solve a puzzle... but to keep reading the same
text would probably be even more frustrating. I know that for myself, I don't
have the patience that I used to have... maybe because in the older days these
games were the best, and possibly the ONLY good games for your system, so you
wouldn't want to just pass them by.
I was hoping that Return to Zork would bring back the same memories of the
original Zork series, but it didn't. It just wasn't the same...
x
x
x
x
r
r
x
rdd
r
x
think I got anywhere in that one.
--
Emilio Galasso
a260...@cdf.toronto.edu
University of Toronto, Computer Science.
Harvey Bernstein
(played them on an Atari 800), and feel that adventure games have been
"dumbed down" to make them more palatable to a mass audience. With that
in mind, I'd like to ask the old-timers out there - what was your first
adventure game experience? For me, it was "The Count" from Scott Adams
(anyone else remember him?). All text with a 2-word parser, but it got me
hooked - for better or worse!
tgb
Christopher E. Forman
: Thanks for the fond Infocom rememberance. I also loved those games
When I was seven years old, I first played the original Adventure in
Colossal Cave on a computer (although I can't recall what kind) in the
hospital laboratory where my parents worked. Most of the puzzles were
beyond my understanding at the time, but I was fascinated with the game
itself -- I loved the concept of being able to explore a strange place
and have it described to me while still having to imagine everything
myself. Anyway, the hospital eventually got rid of the computer I played
it on, and I left the world of computer adventure until several years
later, when I got an Apple IIc and bought a used copy of Enchanter from
a friend at school. From that day, I was hooked. Perhaps that's why
Enchanter is still one of my all-time favorites. I started playing every
parser adventure I could get my hands on -- the Scott Adams games, the
Zork series, etc. I still have a lot of those classics, which is the
primary reason I can't bear to sell my Apple even now.
Curiously enough, the King's Quest/Space Quest/Police Quest/Whatever Quest
series never really grabbed me. Perhaps even at that early age, I
subconsciously knew how restrictive graphics were to the imagination.
Plus you had to move your little character around, which was too arcade-
like for me.
Just a few years ago, I got my first PC and the first game I bought was
the Lost Treasures of Infocom. Despite Activision's sloppiness, I almost
cried when my mind was flooded by memories of Infocom. When Legend
Entertainment began producing parser adventures, I got every one and was
never disappointed.
I agree wholeheartedly with you that adventure games have undergone
extensive changes to make them more accessible to mass audiences. Return
to Zork, although clever, was nowhere near as enjoyable as the original
text games. The graphics and voices weren't what bothered me. I missed
the parser, the freedom to input whatever I wanted. There's only so much
you can do with a point-and-click mouse-driven interface. RTZ would have
been perfect if they'd just allowed for typing.
Anyway, I see I've been babbling incoherently for quite some time now,
so I'll shut up.
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| C. E. Forman -- cef...@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu |
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Neal W. Miller
> . . . I'd like to ask the old-timers out there - what was your first
>adventure game experience? For me, it was "The Count" from Scott Adams
>(anyone else remember him?). All text with a 2-word parser, but it got me
>hooked - for better or worse!
I'm a relative newcomer myself. I started in about 1984, playing
Zork I on a sleek, new Apple ][e. I remember that the disk was 13-sector
rather than the usual 16-sector, and figuring out a way to get it to run was
a pain for someone with no computer experience.
Paul Smith
%% a260...@cdf.toronto.edu (Galasso Emilio N) writes:
gen> In article <3gfkbn$m...@usenet.rpi.edu>,
gen> Neal W. Miller <mil...@marcus.its.rpi.edu> wrote:
>> Interestingly enough, the games for the last three listed
>> machines are $10 more than the same games for the other
>> computers. Also, Zork I was not available for either of the
>> TRS-80 computers.
gen> They must have eventually put out a version of Zork I for the
gen> TRS-80, because I finished all 3 Zorks on my TRS-80 Model IV
gen> (ah.. my first computer.. :).
Infocom licensed at least Zork I to Tandy/Radio Shack and they resold it
from Radio Shacks themselves, that's where I got it from back in... '82?
'83? I got my TRS-80 in '79 I think... or rather, my dad got it :)
Anyway, another interesting tidbit is that Tandy didn't like some of the
more "explicit" language in some of the Infocom games, so in order to
license them to Tandy Infocom had to put in a special "Tandy Mode" that
changed some of the text! Wild.
I happen to know this because my z-machine program (pinfocom) actually
has a way you can flip that "switch" and read it both ways: the games
were exactly the same on all systems but the Tandy-licenses ones had
this switch "flipped" by default. Infocom was way ahead of its time
when it came to code reuse and portability :)
gen> I can't imagine too many people playing those games any
gen> more... they were very difficult at times so I'm sure the
gen> frustration level could be very high. In today's games it's a
gen> pain to see the same scene, or hear the same speech, over and
gen> over again while trying to solve a puzzle... but to keep
gen> reading the same text would probably be even more frustrating.
Actually, it's much easier. First of all, all Infocom games only give
you the full description the first time you enter a room (unless you ask
for it again). Also, just having the text scroll up the screen is no
problem; you just look for the next prompt and ignore it. Since you
don't have to wait (like for speech) it's fine.
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paul D. Smith <psm...@wellfleet.com> Network Management Development
Senior Software Engineer Bay Networks, Inc.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Please remain calm...I may be mad, but I am a professional." --Mad Scientist
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
These are my opinions--Bay Networks takes no responsibility for them.
Jeff Constantine
> Infocom Trivia!
> I was just looking through my back issues of The New Zork Times, which was
>forced to change to The Status Line in 1986 due to some nasty lawyers on
>retainer from another popular newspaper. Back in the summer of 1983, Infocom
>started listing prices for their games, and the machines on which they ran.
>In their first price list (summer '83), here are the systems supported:
Oh, wow, I loved The New Zork Times (Status Line, ugh). My
parents used to get it, and I read through it while they puzzled through
Zorks I-III. ...too hard for me. Man, (I feel like an old person) those
were the days.
--
Jeff Constantine
lord...@teleport.com
Beaverton, Oregon
Keith Stewart
Scott Adams "Pyramid" ? on a TRS-80 Model I clone
My brother had it on his computer and we spent many nights working
through it. LOaded from tape :-)
"Abandom all hope ye who enter " on the entrance.
The mummy
Great stuff
Keith
Judson Cohan
: in mind, I'd like to ask the old-timers out there - what was your first
: adventure game experience? For me, it was "The Count" from Scott Adams
: (anyone else remember him?). All text with a 2-word parser, but it got me
: hooked - for better or worse!
The first time that I ever played an adventure game was in 1977. At a
computer show, a company was demonstrating its terminals by haveing them
all set up to play Colossal Caves on a mainframe somewhere else in the
country. This was before Microsoft was the first (?) company to put the
game onto a microcomputer.
The first adventure game I ever had on my own computer was Scott Adams'
Pirate Adventure. "YOHO"
--
_______________________________________________________________________________
Jud Cohan
j...@netcom.com
"Never let your morals interfere with doing what's right." - S. Hardin
lssh...@alpha.nsula.edu
I'm only 16, but my first computer I played with was the old commodore 64.
With that computer I played several of the graphics games, SSI games, and
whatnot, but the first time I played Zork I, I was hooked myself. I liked
being able to choose to do what I want, when I want. I even enjoyed the
sierra games that had the text interface. When Sierra put the point-and-
click style in their games, I lost interest. Playing those games are easy,
all you have to do is drag your mouse cursor along until some words light
up, and that item, or person is important. I enjoyed/enjoy the old text
games much-much more than EVERYTHING put out today. I am serious, WCIII,
and all those fantastic graphic games just don't compare to me.
Bill Anderson
> In article <1995Jan29.2...@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu>, cef...@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu (Christopher E. Forman) writes:
> > Harvey Bernstein (t...@crl.com) wrote:
> > : Thanks for the fond Infocom rememberance. I also loved those games
> > : (played them on an Atari 800), and feel that adventure games have been
> > : "dumbed down" to make them more palatable to a mass audience. With that
> > : in mind, I'd like to ask the old-timers out there - what was your first
> > : adventure game experience? For me, it was "The Count" from Scott Adams
> > : (anyone else remember him?). All text with a 2-word parser, but it got me
> > : hooked - for better or worse!
- snip -
In 1982 I was still insisting I didn't need a home computer. What would I
do with it? I could balance my checkbook without any help from a
computer, thank you very much. Then a friend visited my house while
traveling on business. His company had just given him an Apple IIE
(pretty neat--the thing had a SHIFT KEY!) and he had a copy of Zork I. We
set the thing up on my dining room table and he introduced me to the field
west of a white house. (There is a mailbox here.) I opened the mailbox.
My eyes grew wider. My friend explained n,s,e,w,u,d, etc. I went
exploring. Found a tree with a nest. Found a cliff overlooking falls.
Got really lost. Then I found the house again, and discovered a window
that was ajar. Opened the window. Went inside. My friend told me to
move the rug and get the lamp and sword and open the trap door. I went
downstairs and my sword began glowing. By this time my heart was
racing--I was totally absorbed in the whole experience. By the time I'd
adjusted the controls at Flood Control Dam #3, it was 2:00 in the morning
and I was completely hooked. My friend left the next day, and within a
week I was the proud owner of an Apple IIE. It took me months to finish
Zork I, and I loved (nearly) every minute of it. (I was annoyed that I
had to be so precise with some of my commands. I knew essentially what I
needed to do with the "bell, book and candle." I just didn't have the
order right and I was typing "read book" instead of "read prayer." Oh
well.) Now I have a 486DX with SVGA and I've played everything from Myst
to 7th Guest to Gabriel Knight to you name it. None of them gives me the
thrill I got with Zork I. What a game! What an innovative addition to
the world of puzzles!
--BA
Robert C. Merritt
>: "dumbed down" to make them more palatable to a mass audience. With that
>: in mind, I'd like to ask the old-timers out there - what was your first
>: adventure game experience? For me, it was "The Count" from Scott Adams
>: (anyone else remember him?). All text with a 2-word parser, but it got me
>: hooked - for better or worse!
>
>
>The first time that I ever played an adventure game was in 1977. At a
>computer show, a company was demonstrating its terminals by haveing them
>all set up to play Colossal Caves on a mainframe somewhere else in the
>country. This was before Microsoft was the first (?) company to put the
>game onto a microcomputer.
>
>The first adventure game I ever had on my own computer was Scott Adams'
>Pirate Adventure. "YOHO"
>
oh god! Pirate Adventure is my favorite text adventure. I loved that
game! I spend may a night clicking the keys on my new vic-20 (when I was
about 10) trying to solve that thing.
Rob
>
>
>--
>
>_______________________________________________________________________________
>Jud Cohan
>j...@netcom.com
>
>"Never let your morals interfere with doing what's right." - S. Hardin
Robert Merritt
-* Disclaimer: Opinions posted here are mine and not of my employer
Mike j DeSanto
: In article <3ggk7g$m...@crl11.crl.com>, Harvey Bernstein <t...@crl.com> wrote:
: > Thanks for the fond Infocom rememberance. I also loved those games
: > (played them on an Atari 800), and feel that adventure games have been
: > "dumbed down" to make them more palatable to a mass audience. With that
: > in mind, I'd like to ask the old-timers out there - what was your first
: > adventure game experience? For me, it was "The Count" from Scott Adams
: > (anyone else remember him?). All text with a 2-word parser, but it got me
: > hooked - for better or worse!
How about the truly lost infocom game: FOOBLIXTY!
Does anyone know whatever happened to it?
--
The Big D desa...@io.com
It doesn't have to work right,
It just has to work!
Elmore D. Limbaugh
: How about the truly lost infocom game: FOOBLIXTY!
: Does anyone know whatever happened to it?
Fooblixty was a flop, at least in the IBM world, becuase it would not run
in color on a cga monitor. It required a composite color adaptor and a
TV. No one bought it.
--
Dean Limbaugh. afn0...@freenet.ufl.edu
*********** Go Gators!! ***************
Harvey Bernstein
It was a flop in ALL formats - noone wanted a multi-player strategy game
from Infocom - no matter HOW humorous. But the REAL flop that finished
off Infocom was a program called Cornerstone - a big attaboy for anyone
who can remember what that was!
tgb
Brian Reilly
: In article <3grv7t$13...@freenet3.freenet.ufl.edu>,
Cornerstone was a spreadsheet that was geared for non-programmers.
Ironically, when Infocom began, Marc Blanc, et. al., wanted to hack
out a couple of games, and get enough money to bankroll business software.
Anyway, Infocom hired many special production and advertising teams for
Cornerstone, but it was to no avail. In a few short months (I think) the
price dropped from $495 to $99. I think I read something somewhere that
many of the people at Infocom refered to Cornerstone as, "Our most
expensive game."
I do have one question, though. Did Cornerstone's failure lead to
Infocom's end, or was it just the result of text adventures (interactive
fiction) being replaced by graphic adventures?
Brian
BTW, take a look at the newsgroup rec.games.int-fiction for more
info.
: tgb
Paul Smith
%% t...@crl.com (Harvey Bernstein) writes:
hb> It was a flop in ALL formats - noone wanted a multi-player
hb> strategy game from Infocom - no matter HOW humorous. But the
hb> REAL flop that finished off Infocom was a program called
hb> Cornerstone - a big attaboy for anyone who can remember what
hb> that was!
Hah, that's easy! :)
Cornerstone was their database product; the way I hear it Infocom was
originally started to produce Cornerstone, but they ended up writing
lots of games in the meantime. Strange.
Cornerstone never went anywhere.
Christopher E. Forman
: It was a flop in ALL formats - noone wanted a multi-player strategy game
: from Infocom - no matter HOW humorous. But the REAL flop that finished
: off Infocom was a program called Cornerstone - a big attaboy for anyone
: who can remember what that was!
It was a database program, Infocom's first (and last) venture into
business software.
Harvey Bernstein
Exactly - it was designed to be an easy-to-use relational database.
Infoocm put most of their resources into developing it, and it played a
large part in the bankruptcy of the company.
tgb
Jeff Constantine
>: How about the truly lost infocom game: FOOBLIXTY!
>: Does anyone know whatever happened to it?
>Fooblixty was a flop, at least in the IBM world, becuase it would not run
>in color on a cga monitor. It required a composite color adaptor and a
>TV. No one bought it.
...and then there were the second-generation Infocom stuff. Shogun,
Quarterstaff, (I think it's called) the Prophecy, Arthur. Maybe I'm
missing a couple. These are the graphical ones, like Zork Zero, although
a couple had completely different interfaces (I think they were Mac
only). I have Arthur, but I can't find the others. I've
wondered about Fooblitzky for a while. ...what's it about, exactly? And
does ANYONE have a copy?
Christopher E. Forman
: ...and then there were the second-generation Infocom stuff. Shogun,
: Quarterstaff, (I think it's called) the Prophecy, Arthur. Maybe I'm
: missing a couple. These are the graphical ones, like Zork Zero, although
: a couple had completely different interfaces (I think they were Mac
: only). I have Arthur, but I can't find the others. I've
: wondered about Fooblitzky for a while. ...what's it about, exactly? And
: does ANYONE have a copy?
IMO, Shogun and Zork Zero represented some of Infocom's best work and proved
that interactive fiction was still possible with graphics (Legend's games
also support this claim). The game you call "The Prophecy" is a fantasy
RPG from Activision, included in their Sci-Fi Powerhits pack. I believe the
Infocom game you're thinking of is Journey. I haven't played Arthur, but
I'm ordering a used copy from someone along with Journey, and I used to have
a copy of Shogun for the Apple II. Quarterstaff was the only game that
existed solely for the Mac, and there are rumors of a completed PC version
that was never released. Ditto a sequel to Journey, although no versions of
this were released, and I'm not sure it was even finished.
I have an old catalog of Infocom games somewhere, but it's been awhile since
I've looked at it. The best I can describe Fooblitzky is...have you ever
played the Milton-Bradley(?) game Credit-ability? That's kind of what it
reminded me of. You had to buy and sell assets, or something. That's all
I can recall.
BTW, if anyone has a copy of Shogun or Fooblitzky for the PC, I'd be very
interested. Any info on the unreleased PC version of Quarterstaff would be
nice too.
R. N. Dominick
: IMO, Shogun and Zork Zero represented some of Infocom's best work and proved
: that interactive fiction was still possible with graphics (Legend's games
: also support this claim).
Zork Zero was a great game, no doubt. But I and others (my friends back
home; we would all get together and buy the latest Infocom game and then
solve it together) found Shogun too linear, restrictive and pretty much
impossible to solve in the early stages without having read the book. I
think Doug finally got through it, but none of the rest of us did.
: BTW, if anyone has a copy of Shogun or Fooblitzky for the PC, I'd be very
: interested. Any info on the unreleased PC version of Quarterstaff would be
: nice too.
According to Dave Lebling, there is NO "unreleased PC version of
Quarterstaff". (ref: the "Infocom Reunion Conference" transcript,
availiable (somewhere) on CIS, in a direct answer to a direct question
about this. He was very definitive.)
Isn't Shogun on the CD-ROM version of LTOI2? (Along with Journey and
Arthur...)
--r.
Unknown
I have two questions to Samnmax !
1) What should I do with the bottle on the yeti-party ??
2) What should I do with the fruit (?) witch looks like the man
on the picture in bumpusville ( Mr. Muir ) ??
Thanks for help !
Heiko
---
E-Mail: koe...@tu-harburg.d400.de
Keith Stewart
Jeff Constantine <lord...@teleport.com> wrote:
> In <3grv7t$13...@freenet3.freenet.ufl.edu> afn0...@usenet.freenet.ufl.edu (Elmore D. Limbaugh) writes:
>
>
> >: How about the truly lost infocom game: FOOBLIXTY!
>
> >: Does anyone know whatever happened to it?
>
> >Fooblixty was a flop, at least in the IBM world, becuase it would not run
> >in color on a cga monitor. It required a composite color adaptor and a
> >TV. No one bought it.
>
> wondered about Fooblitzky for a while. ...what's it about, exactly? And
> does ANYONE have a copy?
Yep I do :-)
Its a " computer graphics strategy game"
To quote the back of the box
" a unique games of deduction, strategy and chance. Its a dog eat dog
world as you rove the busy streets and shops of Fooblitzky to try and
deduce and obtain the four objects needed to win the game. ........
The challenge will keep you coming back again and again.....
Keith
John Menichelli
It was Zork I on an Osborne I (10 points to anyone who remembers that
one, 20 if you actually *owned* one). My friend and I would sit for hours
staring at that 5" black and white screen.... Ah, the memories.
Be sure to check out the ftp site ftp.gmd.de. It has all kinds of text
adventure stuff, such as games, languages to write your own adventures,
newsletters, etc, etc.
John
meni...@pixi.com