I know it’s a little late, but since we seemed to be running a big boom of gaming news right now I thought it might be appropriate to mention that earlier this month the original source code for Will Crowther’s Colossal Cave Adventure, a game based on parts of Mammoth Cave in Kentucky.

It was on a backup of a student account belonging to Don Woods, who made improvements to the game, with Crowther’s blessing, back in the late 70’s. Woods introduced things like elves and trolls into the game as well as other fantasy elements.

This game was so influential to not only video games, but programming as well that students at Stanford must still re-implement it as an assignment in their first computer programming course. Not a bad legacy for a game over 30 years old and written in a language that probably wasn’t the best fit for it, eh?

If you liked that, try...

1. Jim Butterfield, 1936-2007
2. BitTorrent Closes Source Code
3. HOWTO: Code a Simple Game in Python
4. InnerGeek: Code Saga: Part III Revenge of the Lazy
5. Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness

1 Comment »

1. 
   Devin de Gruyl
   August 16, 2007 at 7:40 pm

   Wow. Just… wow. In terms of computing history, this is the equivalent of the Rosetta Stone being unearthed.

   Color me duly impressed.

   (Now, can we hope for the original Rogue code to turn up somewhere?) ;^)

   [Reply]

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