"You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike."
-
Yesterday I got a question from one of the junior developers about using search to get something out of our in-house document repository. My reply was:
From MS Teams:
The starting point is usually one of tag tables... You are in a maze of twisty, little passages, all alike.
I had to explain the reference to him. Earlier today, I mentioned this to one of the senior developers, who also didn't recognise it, and, after I explained, commented that he was "minus ten years old" when the source of this was popular. Who else here remembers where this comes from and spent time on it?
-
My big "shock" along the same lines I actually had 30 years ago, around 1992-93. I was teaching telecommunication systems; going to look at various signaling alternatives such as tone signaling, interrupt signaling, digital out-of-band signaling (in ISDN). To open with something familiar, I started with the tick-tick-tick of the rotary dial phone. The students returned a blank stare. Rotary dial, what's that? In two student groups, a total of between 55 and 60 students, two of them had seen such a phone, plus one claiming that an old aunt actually had one of those museum devices. A few other students told that they had seen such things in old movies, but never in real life. So my attempt to start out at 'something familiar' failed completely. Today it is not surprising that rotary dial phones are unfamiliar, but this was thirty years ago! Then: I frequently see young people refer to concepts like 'Big Brother' and '1984', sometimes obviously out of context. Whether out of or in context, if I ask a little closer, it turns out that the only thing they know about the novel is the title, and that the state in called 'Big Brother'. They haven't even opened the title page of the book. There was a reference not many days ago, here in the lounge, to 'I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.' I guess that a fair share of the readers know this as 'a way of speech', but have never seen the movie. I could list a dozen similar ones, but half of them are culture specific. Still, they are of the same nature: Ways of speech, and idiomatic references where the older generation knows the historical background, the younger do not but keep using it as ways of speech. I suspect that a lot of the ways of speech of my generation is the same way: To me/us, they are just 'standard expressions'. If I could ask my great grandparents, if they had been alive, they might associate something very specific with it, maybe from a person we have hardly heard of, or to some event far back in history. So I am not really demanding/expecting younger people to understand the background for expressions such as twisting little passages all alike, I'm afraid I can't do that, jumping after Wirkola and the Soup Council. It is nevertheless fun to meet youth who are willing to learn the background. If they ask, they are fascinated by the answers.
Your Big Brother reference reminded me of something from my first year of university, that being 1971-1972. I was a member of the university radio station. One of the staff bought a new date stamp and discovered, somewhat prophetically or ironically, that the highest date it could produce was December 31, 1983. He took a sheet of paper, stamped it all over with that date, leaving a blank area in the middle. In that space he printed "You know what tomorrow is...", then he posted the result on the bulletin board in the station. Many of us looked it over, smiled and nodded, having got the reference right away. However, those of us who did get it were astounded by the number of people who stared at it, then said, "I don't get it". Even after pointing out to them that the next day would be January 1st, 1984, their typical answer would be "So?". For most of us, 1984 had been required reading in a high school literature class. It kind of brought home that too many people had never cracked the book, and never learned about doublespeak.
-
Played it on a PDP-10 in 1977 or 1978.
Robust Services Core | Software Techniques for Lemmings | Articles
The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.I played it on my CPM System around that time. A friend of mine played it as well. He started a job at Link-a-Bit (later Qualcomm) as the new guy they showed it to him at lunch on the PDP-10, he progressed so far into the game they ask him how he went so far. he told them he played it on a friend's home computer, they thought it was impossible, that it could only be run on a Main Frame. Now you can run it on a phone. PROGRESS and there are some that believe it is all Alien Technology.
-
bryanren wrote:
University of Illinois where I saw PLATO
Online multi-player gaming. Players could be in one game across the US. Star Trek. Up to 32 players. Federation, Orion, Klingon, Romulans. Ship type for each was different. I heard, but never actually saw, a claim that someone hooked one keyboard to multiple machines to make a 'fleet' that maneuvered the same. Probably wore out keyboards because you had to rapidly hit a key (space?) during any battle to keep your shields up. ------------------------------- Also 'tracking' users. Games/applications ran in a space and if someone accessed that one could track their usage (seems like more than just the name.)
-
Yesterday I got a question from one of the junior developers about using search to get something out of our in-house document repository. My reply was:
From MS Teams:
The starting point is usually one of tag tables... You are in a maze of twisty, little passages, all alike.
I had to explain the reference to him. Earlier today, I mentioned this to one of the senior developers, who also didn't recognise it, and, after I explained, commented that he was "minus ten years old" when the source of this was popular. Who else here remembers where this comes from and spent time on it?
Oh yes.. spent hours in the caves via a PDP-11/34 thanks to DECUS
-
Yesterday I got a question from one of the junior developers about using search to get something out of our in-house document repository. My reply was:
From MS Teams:
The starting point is usually one of tag tables... You are in a maze of twisty, little passages, all alike.
I had to explain the reference to him. Earlier today, I mentioned this to one of the senior developers, who also didn't recognise it, and, after I explained, commented that he was "minus ten years old" when the source of this was popular. Who else here remembers where this comes from and spent time on it?
I don't recall this phrase exactly but it does harken back to the days of the Commodore-64/128 machines and all their adventure games..
Steve Naidamast Sr. Software Engineer Black Falcon Software, Inc. blackfalconsoftware@outlook.com
-
Yesterday I got a question from one of the junior developers about using search to get something out of our in-house document repository. My reply was:
From MS Teams:
The starting point is usually one of tag tables... You are in a maze of twisty, little passages, all alike.
I had to explain the reference to him. Earlier today, I mentioned this to one of the senior developers, who also didn't recognise it, and, after I explained, commented that he was "minus ten years old" when the source of this was popular. Who else here remembers where this comes from and spent time on it?
The best Part: :-D " You are on the edge of a breath-taking view. Far below you is an active volcano, from which great gouts of molten lava come surging out, cascading back down into the depths. The glowing rock fills the farthest reaches of the cavern with a blood-red glare, giving every- thing an eerie, macabre appearance. The air is filled with flickering sparks of ash and a heavy smell of brimstone. The walls are hot to the touch, and the thundering of the volcano drowns out all other sounds. Embedded in the jagged roof far overhead are myriad twisted formations composed of pure white alabaster, which scatter the murky light into sinister apparitions upon the walls. To one side is a deep gorge, filled with a bizarre chaos of tortured rock which seems to have been crafted by the devil himself. An immense river of fire crashes out from the depths of the volcano, burns its way through the gorge, and plummets into a bottomless pit far off to your left. To the right, an immense geyser of blistering steam erupts continuously from a barren island in the center of a sulfurous lake, which bubbles ominously. The far right wall is aflame with an incandescence of its own, which lends an additional infernal splendor to the already hellish scene. A dark, foreboding passage exits to the south. "
-
Yesterday I got a question from one of the junior developers about using search to get something out of our in-house document repository. My reply was:
From MS Teams:
The starting point is usually one of tag tables... You are in a maze of twisty, little passages, all alike.
I had to explain the reference to him. Earlier today, I mentioned this to one of the senior developers, who also didn't recognise it, and, after I explained, commented that he was "minus ten years old" when the source of this was popular. Who else here remembers where this comes from and spent time on it?
Me. ;) Two words: Colossal cave. 'Nuff said.
-
Yesterday I got a question from one of the junior developers about using search to get something out of our in-house document repository. My reply was:
From MS Teams:
The starting point is usually one of tag tables... You are in a maze of twisty, little passages, all alike.
I had to explain the reference to him. Earlier today, I mentioned this to one of the senior developers, who also didn't recognise it, and, after I explained, commented that he was "minus ten years old" when the source of this was popular. Who else here remembers where this comes from and spent time on it?
Takes me back 45+ years. Use XYZZY all the time in conversation and almost no one understands the reference but they use it too. Adventure!
-
Yesterday I got a question from one of the junior developers about using search to get something out of our in-house document repository. My reply was:
From MS Teams:
The starting point is usually one of tag tables... You are in a maze of twisty, little passages, all alike.
I had to explain the reference to him. Earlier today, I mentioned this to one of the senior developers, who also didn't recognise it, and, after I explained, commented that he was "minus ten years old" when the source of this was popular. Who else here remembers where this comes from and spent time on it?
-
Yesterday I got a question from one of the junior developers about using search to get something out of our in-house document repository. My reply was:
From MS Teams:
The starting point is usually one of tag tables... You are in a maze of twisty, little passages, all alike.
I had to explain the reference to him. Earlier today, I mentioned this to one of the senior developers, who also didn't recognise it, and, after I explained, commented that he was "minus ten years old" when the source of this was popular. Who else here remembers where this comes from and spent time on it?
I met that phrase in the late 1970s. It also told me "Fie! You're no wizard!"
-
I know it as “Colossal Cave”. It was available as an Android app on Amazon’s app store a few years back. Did you also tell them that the Guaranteed Escape for that maze (versus the “all different” maze) was North North North Up Down I first saw the game at the local Junior College on its HP 3000 mini which was the size of 2-3 refrigerators circa 1981.
I found the Star Trek game that I'd played on an IBM 370 as an Android app a few years ago.
-
Yesterday I got a question from one of the junior developers about using search to get something out of our in-house document repository. My reply was:
From MS Teams:
The starting point is usually one of tag tables... You are in a maze of twisty, little passages, all alike.
I had to explain the reference to him. Earlier today, I mentioned this to one of the senior developers, who also didn't recognise it, and, after I explained, commented that he was "minus ten years old" when the source of this was popular. Who else here remembers where this comes from and spent time on it?
Naturally I remember my first Adventure in Colossal Cave. Not the date. Probably 1976 after 11 pm in the computer center.
-
Yesterday I got a question from one of the junior developers about using search to get something out of our in-house document repository. My reply was:
From MS Teams:
The starting point is usually one of tag tables... You are in a maze of twisty, little passages, all alike.
I had to explain the reference to him. Earlier today, I mentioned this to one of the senior developers, who also didn't recognise it, and, after I explained, commented that he was "minus ten years old" when the source of this was popular. Who else here remembers where this comes from and spent time on it?
-
So much more than gaming. Was told that some college classes were entirely online via PLATO. They showed us a touchscreen application for teaching fractions to littles. I don't know if the vector terminals I saw were the only format. Those were amber.
bryanren wrote:
Was told that some college classes were entirely online via PLATO.
They certainly marketed it that way.
bryanren wrote:
They showed us a touchscreen application for teaching fractions to littles
I wrote a teaching application on that platform as an independent study course in college. It taught, or at least attempted to, electrical characteristics of a common small circuit. Taught it, gave examples, animated it, gave tests.
bryanren wrote:
if the vector terminals I saw were the only format.
As far as I know/recall there were two terminal types. Couldn't really hook anything else up to the system since it would have been pointless without the specialized hardware. Googling (wikipedia) suggests that the terminal was vector and character based. That makes sense since I remember using and creating games specifically involved creating a character set to represent the game on the screen. So, if I remember correctly, for the star trek game above each ship had a different character (or could have been two each half and half). Then those were plotted to the screen. The screens were touch screens. But I don't recall doing much with that at all.
-
I found the Star Trek game that I'd played on an IBM 370 as an Android app a few years ago.
-
bryanren wrote:
Was told that some college classes were entirely online via PLATO.
They certainly marketed it that way.
bryanren wrote:
They showed us a touchscreen application for teaching fractions to littles
I wrote a teaching application on that platform as an independent study course in college. It taught, or at least attempted to, electrical characteristics of a common small circuit. Taught it, gave examples, animated it, gave tests.
bryanren wrote:
if the vector terminals I saw were the only format.
As far as I know/recall there were two terminal types. Couldn't really hook anything else up to the system since it would have been pointless without the specialized hardware. Googling (wikipedia) suggests that the terminal was vector and character based. That makes sense since I remember using and creating games specifically involved creating a character set to represent the game on the screen. So, if I remember correctly, for the star trek game above each ship had a different character (or could have been two each half and half). Then those were plotted to the screen. The screens were touch screens. But I don't recall doing much with that at all.
I never saw a Plato terminal myself, but I read about it in Ted Nelson: Computer Lib / Dream Machines. He tells:
The internal circuitry that draws the screen
is highly capable. Receiving a 20-bitt code,
the terminal itself deciphers it as --
A LINE ON THE SCREEN, or
TWO STANDARD CHARACTERS ON THE SCREEN
from its FIXED set character memory, or
TWO SPECIAL CHARACTERS ON THE SCREEN
from its CHANGEABLE character memory
(which can be loaded with Russian,
Armenian, katakana, Cherokee or what-
ever -- even little pictures -- at the
start of the lesson), or
A COMMAND TO THE MICROFICHE PROJECTOR, or
A COMMAND TO THE AUDIO PLAYER, or
A COMMAND TO WHATERVER'S IN THE GENERAL JACK.He also tells: The next generation of Plato terminals is coming down the line. The microfiche projector is withering away, as was easily foreseeable; meantime steps are being taken toward a more high-performance terminal, by putting a computer in it. So it seems like there were at least two generations of Plato terminals, and it could handle both characters and lines - but only pixel on/off, no halftones. The microfiche was projected plasma screen from the back; it gave access to 'unlimited' amounts of text without having to transfer it over the phone line. The touch panel was an option, as was the audio disk. The 'general jack' was an I/O connector, intended for 'all kinds of other devices, such as piano keyboards, to be used for student input'. A terminal cost USD 5000 -- that is mid-1970s dollars. I can't tell exactly the year this was written; my copy states 'Copyright (c) 1974, 1975, 1980', but I believe that the text is unchanged from the original 1974 edition. (It wasn't labeled 'Second edition' until 1987', long after I got my copy.)
-
Yesterday I got a question from one of the junior developers about using search to get something out of our in-house document repository. My reply was:
From MS Teams:
The starting point is usually one of tag tables... You are in a maze of twisty, little passages, all alike.
I had to explain the reference to him. Earlier today, I mentioned this to one of the senior developers, who also didn't recognise it, and, after I explained, commented that he was "minus ten years old" when the source of this was popular. Who else here remembers where this comes from and spent time on it?
In 1978, "Adventure" was the first game I ran on my (then) newly built Heathkit H8 computer -- built while I was an undergrad at a regional campus of Purdue. It's been so long that I can't remember where I got the executable that ran it. I'm not sure if I bought it or if it was freeware from some "dial-up" BBS downloaded at 300 baud on my acoustic coupler modem. Ever since I first set up my home Wi-Fi ages ago, its SSID has been "XYZZY." I'm quite sure none of my neighbors get the reference. I feel so old. Of course, that's because... I am old. ;)
