Documentation polishing.

[open-adventure.git] / history.adoc

diff --git a/history.adoc b/history.adoc
index c3d7b3ab1b8c8893a3d94f106916076f822478ce..86f49034250544adb7364605496f07b2ad169951 100644 (file)
--- a/history.adoc
+++ b/history.adoc
@@ -2,9 +2,11 @@
 by Eric S. Raymond
 
 Adventure is the fons et origo of all later dungeon-crawling computer
 by Eric S. Raymond
 
 Adventure is the fons et origo of all later dungeon-crawling computer

-games, the grandaddy of interactive fiction, and one of the hallowed
+games, the granddaddy of interactive fiction, and one of the hallowed

 artifacts of hacker folklore.
 
 artifacts of hacker folklore.
 

+== Origin and history ==
+

 The very first version was released by Crowther in 1976, in FORTRAN on
 the PDP-10 at Bolt, Beranek, and Newman. (Crowther was at the time
 writing what we could now call firmware for the earliest ARPANET
 The very first version was released by Crowther in 1976, in FORTRAN on
 the PDP-10 at Bolt, Beranek, and Newman. (Crowther was at the time
 writing what we could now call firmware for the earliest ARPANET


@@ -41,17 +43,20 @@ ports of some versions existed - some in FORTRAN, some in C,
 some in other languages - so the maximum point score is not
 completely disambiguating.
 
 some in other languages - so the maximum point score is not
 completely disambiguating.
 

-Same articles at <<DA>> are a narrative of the history of the
-game.  There is an in-depth study of its origins at <<SN>>.
-Many versions are collected at The Interactive Fiction Archive
-<<IFA>>; note however that its dates for the earliest releases
-don't match other comments in the code or the careful reconstruction
-in <<SN>>.
+Same articles at <<DA>> are a narrative of the history of the game.
+There is an in-depth study of its origins at <<SN>>.  Many versions
+are collected at The Interactive Fiction Archive <<IFA>>; note however
+that IFA's historical claims are thinly sourced and its dates for the
+earliest releases don't match either comments in the code or the
+careful reconstruction in <<SN>>.
+
+== Open Adventure ==

 
 

-Future versions of this document may attempt to untangle some of the
-non-mainline history. For now, it will suffice to explain the chain of
-provenance that led from the original Adventure to the version
-distributed with this document.
+An attempt to untangle and document a lot of the non-mainline history
+has been made by Arthur O'Dwyer at <<QUUX>>.  For our purposes, it
+will suffice to explain the chain of provenance that led from the
+original Adventure to the Open Adventure distributed with this
+document.

 
 The original 350-point ADVENT on the PDP-10 had been one of my
 formative experiences as a fledgling hacker in 1976-77. Forty years
 
 The original 350-point ADVENT on the PDP-10 had been one of my
 formative experiences as a fledgling hacker in 1976-77. Forty years


@@ -65,7 +70,7 @@ open-source licensing were not yet fully established. The Makefile
 contained a rights reservation by Don Woods and that was it.
 
 I wrote to Don asking permission to release 2.5 under 2-clause BSD;
 contained a rights reservation by Don Woods and that was it.
 
 I wrote to Don asking permission to release 2.5 under 2-clause BSD;

-he replied on 15 May giving both permission and encouragement.
+he replied on 15 May 2017 giving both permission and encouragement.

 
 Here is what Don said about differences between the original Adventure
 and 2.5:
 
 Here is what Don said about differences between the original Adventure
 and 2.5:


@@ -109,12 +114,20 @@ and 2.5:
 > also details like just what _can_ you do in the dark...?
 ............................................................................
 
 > also details like just what _can_ you do in the dark...?
 ............................................................................
 

+Great care has been taken to preserve 2.5's exact gameplay as intended
+by Don.  However, under the hood Open Adventure is rather different from
+2.5.  Where 2.5 was written in FORTRAN mechanically translated into extremely
+ugly C, Open Adventure has been translated into much more modern and
+idiomatic C.  The extremely cryptic and opaque format of the original
+database of rooms, objects, and strings has been moved to YAML;
+this makes the brilliant design of it much easier to comprehend.
+

 == Earlier non-influences ==
 
 There is record of one earlier dungeon-crawling game called "dnd",
 written in 1974-75 on the PLATO system at University of Illinois
 <<DND>>.  This was in some ways similar to later roguelike games but
 == Earlier non-influences ==
 
 There is record of one earlier dungeon-crawling game called "dnd",
 written in 1974-75 on the PLATO system at University of Illinois
 <<DND>>.  This was in some ways similar to later roguelike games but

-not to Adventure.  The designers of later roguelikes frequently site
+not to Adventure.  The designers of later roguelikes frequently cite

 Adventure as an influence, but not dnd; like PLATO itself, dnd seems
 not to have become known outside of its own user community until
 rediscovered by computer historians many years after Adventure
 Adventure as an influence, but not dnd; like PLATO itself, dnd seems
 not to have become known outside of its own user community until
 rediscovered by computer historians many years after Adventure


@@ -127,11 +140,12 @@ and minicomputer-centered culture Crowther and Woods were part of
 until well after Adventure was written.
 
 (I was a developer of the Nethack roguelike early in that game's
 until well after Adventure was written.
 
 (I was a developer of the Nethack roguelike early in that game's

-history; we knew of Hunt The Wumpus then from its early Unix port, but
-it didn't influence us either, nor in any apparent way the designers
-of other early roguelikes. After my time the wumpus was included as a
-monster in Nethack, but this was done in a spirit of conscious
-museumization after historians rediscovered Yob's game.)
+history, in the late 1980s; we knew nothing of PLATO dnd.  We did know
+of Hunt The Wumpus then from its early Unix port, but it didn't
+influence us either, nor in any apparent way the designers of other
+early roguelikes. After my time the wumpus was included as a monster
+in Nethack, but this was done in a spirit of conscious museumization
+well after historians rediscovered Yob's game.)

 
 Neither of these games used an attempt at a natural-language parser
 even as primitive as Adventure's.
 
 Neither of these games used an attempt at a natural-language parser
 even as primitive as Adventure's.


@@ -149,3 +163,5 @@ even as primitive as Adventure's.
 - [[[DND]]] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dnd_(video_game)
 
 - [[[WUMPUS]]] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunt_the_Wumpus
 - [[[DND]]] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dnd_(video_game)
 
 - [[[WUMPUS]]] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunt_the_Wumpus

+
+- [[[QUUX]]] https://github.com/Quuxplusone/Advent