2 Jul
2021
2 Jul
'21
2:05 a.m.
What was the first machine to run rogue? I understand that it was written
by Glenn Wichman and Michael Toy at UC Santa Cruz ca. 1980, using the
`curses` library (Ken Arnold's original, not Mary Ann's rewrite). I've
seen
at least one place that indicates it first ran on 6th Edition, but that
doesn't sound right to me. The first reference I can find in BSD is in 2.79
("rogue.doc"), which also appears to be the first release to ship curses.
Anyone have any info? Thanks!
- Dan C.
2 Jul
2 Jul
2:51 a.m.
I first got it on V7, as I said on our 11/70 for sure but I don’t remember
if we had it on the 11/60 before that.
On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 10:07 PM Dan Cross <crossd(a)gmail.com> wrote:
What was the first machine to run rogue? I understand
that it was written
by Glenn Wichman and Michael Toy at UC Santa Cruz ca. 1980, using the
`curses` library (Ken Arnold's original, not Mary Ann's rewrite). I've
seen
at least one place that indicates it first ran on 6th Edition, but that
doesn't sound right to me. The first reference I can find in BSD is in 2.79
("rogue.doc"), which also appears to be the first release to ship curses.
Anyone have any info? Thanks!
- Dan C.
--
Sent from a handheld expect more typos than usual
11:24 a.m.
Thanks, Clem. I'm curious what other lore is out there: my suspicion is
that rogue never ran on vanilla v6, but it would be great to validate.
On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 10:51 PM Clem Cole <clemc(a)ccc.com> wrote:
I first got it on V7, as I said on our 11/70 for sure
but I don’t remember
if we had it on the 11/60 before that.
On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 10:07 PM Dan Cross <crossd(a)gmail.com> wrote:
What was the first machine to run rogue? I
understand that it was written
by Glenn Wichman and Michael Toy at UC Santa Cruz ca. 1980, using the
`curses` library (Ken Arnold's original, not Mary Ann's rewrite). I've
seen
at least one place that indicates it first ran on 6th Edition, but that
doesn't sound right to me. The first reference I can find in BSD is in 2.79
("rogue.doc"), which also appears to be the first release to ship curses.
Anyone have any info? Thanks!
- Dan C.
--
Sent from a handheld expect more typos than usual
11:40 a.m.
Is the rogue source extant? I remember many people spending many
hours on rogue on the 4.[12] BSD vax at Georgia Tech.
ISTR that rogue only came as a binary, there was no source.
Arnold
Dan Cross <crossd(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Thanks, Clem. I'm curious what other lore is out
there: my suspicion is
that rogue never ran on vanilla v6, but it would be great to validate.
On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 10:51 PM Clem Cole <clemc(a)ccc.com> wrote:
> I first got it on V7, as I said on our 11/70 for sure but I don’t remember
> if we had it on the 11/60 before that.
>
> On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 10:07 PM Dan Cross <crossd(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> What was the first machine to run rogue? I understand that it was written
>> by Glenn Wichman and Michael Toy at UC Santa Cruz ca. 1980, using the
>> `curses` library (Ken Arnold's original, not Mary Ann's rewrite).
I've seen
>> at least one place that indicates it first ran on 6th Edition, but that
>> doesn't sound right to me. The first reference I can find in BSD is in
2.79
>> ("rogue.doc"), which also appears to be the first release to ship
curses.
>>
>> Anyone have any info? Thanks!
>>
>> - Dan C.
>>
>> --
> Sent from a handheld expect more typos than usual
>
12:14 p.m.
On Fri, Jul 2, 2021 at 7:40 AM <arnold(a)skeeve.com> wrote:
Is the rogue source extant? I remember many people
spending many
hours on rogue on the 4.[12] BSD vax at Georgia Tech.
ISTR that rogue only came as a binary, there was no source.
It is; it looks like it was first distributed with 4.3BSD-Tahoe. The
sources there are listed as "public domain rogue", but I'm not sure about
the provenance of that code.
- Dan C.
Arnold
Dan Cross <crossd(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Thanks, Clem. I'm curious what other lore is
out there: my suspicion is
that rogue never ran on vanilla v6, but it would be great to validate.
On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 10:51 PM Clem Cole <clemc(a)ccc.com> wrote:
> I first got it on V7, as I said on our 11/70 for sure but I don’t
remember
> if we had it on the 11/60 before that.
>
> On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 10:07 PM Dan Cross <crossd(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> What was the first machine to run rogue? I understand that it was
written
>> by Glenn Wichman and Michael Toy at UC
Santa Cruz ca. 1980, using the
>> `curses` library (Ken Arnold's original, not Mary Ann's rewrite).
I've seen
>> at least one place that indicates it
first ran on 6th Edition, but
that
>> doesn't sound right to me. The
first reference I can find in BSD is
in 2.79
>> ("rogue.doc"), which also
appears to be the first release to ship
curses.
>>
>> Anyone have any info? Thanks!
>>
>> - Dan C.
>>
>> --
> Sent from a handheld expect more typos than usual
>
1:07 p.m.
On Fri, Jul 2, 2021 at 8:15 AM Dan Cross <crossd(a)gmail.com> wrote:
It is; it looks like it was first distributed with
4.3BSD-Tahoe. The
sources there are listed as "public domain rogue", but I'm not sure about
the provenance of that code.
That sounds right, you should ask Ken Arnold offline, I bet he had a better
idea. He would have made them available to Keith.
ᐧ
3:24 p.m.
Clem Cole <clemc(a)ccc.com> writes:
On Fri, Jul 2, 2021 at 8:15 AM Dan Cross
<crossd(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I don't know what it was exactly, but in the mid 1980s a version of
rogue existed for OS-9 Level 2 on the 6809 and I ran it on a Radio Shack
Color Computer. By the later part of that decade, I had access to a
PDP11 running 2.something BSD and played rogue there too. The Color
Computer version was either a good clone, or someone had access to the
source code.
This -> http://www.lcurtisboyle.com/nitros9/rogue.html looks like it..
Says 1986 by Epyx
--
Brad Spencer - brad(a)anduin.eldar.org - KC8VKS - http://anduin.eldar.org
It is; it looks like it was first distributed
with 4.3BSD-Tahoe. The
sources there are listed as "public domain rogue", but I'm not sure about
the provenance of that code.
That sounds right, you should ask Ken Arnold offline, I bet he had a better
idea. He would have made them available to Keith.
ᐧ 
4:27 p.m.
This -> http://www.lcurtisboyle.com/nitros9/rogue.html looks like it..
Says 1986 by Epyx
Between https://sourceforge.net/projects/roguelike/ and
https://britzl.github.io/roguearchive/ you’ve got a lot to work with.
Adam
9:09 p.m.
On Fri, Jul 2, 2021 at 9:07 AM Clem Cole <clemc(a)ccc.com> wrote:
On Fri, Jul 2, 2021 at 8:15 AM Dan Cross
<crossd(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Great idea. I reached out on linked in, but don't have an email address for
Ken. Anyone have his contact information?
I'm curious if e.g. Mary Ann has any thoughts here, since she took over
maintaining curses at some point and might have gotten some of the inside
story?
Thanks for the responses so far, all.
- Dan C.
It is; it looks like it was first distributed
with 4.3BSD-Tahoe. The
sources there are listed as "public domain rogue", but I'm not sure about
the provenance of that code.
That sounds right, you should ask Ken Arnold offline, I bet he had a
better idea. He would have made them available to Keith.
10 Jul
10 Jul
3:17 a.m.
As I recall, Rogue began to appear in late 1980 or early 81 at Berkeley.
I primarily remember it on the Vax. But I thought Toy et al originally
wrote it at UCSB and then it came to UCB. It was written for the Arnold
curses, and served as the first major application to test it out.
I loved that game. Still do, although I rarely find time to play it
anymore. It's widely available on web emulators these days, just search
for "play rogue online". It will likely be the color DOS version, but it
plays roughly the same.
The source was widely available and widely customized. I think I brought
a copy with me to Bell Labs in 1981 where Bob Flandrena eventually
sprouted the "brogue" variant. Some of the monsters could eat into the
walls between rooms, and when there was a line of several chasing you
down a hallway, one or two of them would pull around to pass... Brogue
worked on my new curses, it was in effect part of the test suite.
Eric, of course, is the authority noting that ing70 was "i" and, as I
recall, ingvax was "j".
Mary Ann
On 7/2/21 2:09 PM, Dan Cross wrote:
On Fri, Jul 2, 2021 at 9:07 AM Clem Cole
<clemc(a)ccc.com
<mailto:clemc@ccc.com>> wrote:
On Fri, Jul 2, 2021 at 8:15 AM Dan Cross <crossd(a)gmail.com
<mailto:crossd@gmail.com>> wrote:
It is; it looks like it was first distributed with
4.3BSD-Tahoe. The sources there are listed as "public domain
rogue", but I'm not sure about the provenance of that code.
That sounds right, you should ask Ken Arnold offline, I bet he had
a better idea.He would have made them available to Keith.
Great idea. I reached out on linked in, but don't have an email
address for Ken. Anyone have his contact information?
I'm curious if e.g. Mary Ann has any thoughts here, since she took
over maintaining curses at some point and might have gotten some of
the inside story?
Thanks for the responses so far, all.
- Dan C.
4 a.m.
I collected some stuff in from those days; here's a BerkNet map
dated November 1981; mtime on my file is Jan 2 1984:
T H E B E R K E L E Y N E T W O R K
November 30, 1981
{ARPAnet} Ing70 Legend
@ # - or | 1200 Baud
@ # = or # 9600 Baud
C70 IngVAX {UUCPland} Image @ ARPAnet
# # / |
# # / |
Onyx======ARPAvax====CSvax=====UCBCAD=====ESvax-----EECS40
# # |
Novax # A |
# # |
F ======= G ======= C ------ Cory ----MathStat
# #
# #
D E ======== B
|
|
SRC
M A C H I N E G U I D E
Name Char Run By Type Vers. Default Mach. Comments
---- ---- ------ ---- ---- ------------- --------
A a C F & O 11/70 V7 C PhotoTypesetter Machine
B b C F & O 11/70 V7 D School of Business Administration Machine
C c C F & O 11/70 V7 A
D d C F & O 11/70 V7 C
E e C F & O 11/70 V7 C
F f C F & O 11/70 V7 E
G g C F & O VAX V7 E VAX Populi
Ing70 i ERL 11/70 V6 IngVAX
IngVAX j Ingres Group VAX V7 Ing70 Ingres Bergman
Image m EE-Signal Proc. Vax750 V7 ESvax
Kim n Floating Point VAX V7 CSvax Kim NoVAX
ESvax o EECS-CE Res. VAX V7 CSvax VAX Vobiscum (UUCP passive)
UCBCAD p Newton VAX V7 ESvax (UUCP passive)
ARPAvax r ARPA/CSRG VAX V7 CSvax Bert (UUCP passive)
SRC s Survey Res. 11/34 V6 D
MathStat t Math/Stat Dept 11/45 V7 Cory
C70 u ARPA/CSRG BBN C/70 ARPAVAX ARPAnet Server
CSvax v CS Research VAX V7 Cory Ernie CoVAX (UUCP active)
Cory y EECS Dept. 11/70 V7 CSvax EECS Instructional Machine (UUCP passive)
EECS40 z EECS Dept. 11/40 V6 Ing70 EECS Administrative Machine (Soon to be replace with a
Vax-11/750)
(the following machines are not connected or do not exist yet)
Virus k MicroBiology 11/40 V7 E Politics Prevent Connection to the BerkNet
VLSI l Brodersen VAX V7 Image On order, exp. June 81
HackOnyx q CSUA Hackers Onyx V7 Cory Existing, exp. March 82
STATVAX w Stat Dept. COMET V7 MathStat On order, exp. Nov 81
Onyx x CSRG (Fabry) Onyx V7 Cory z8000 Micro running v7 UNIX (UUCP passive)
(Letters used: A-Z (total of 26)) (K & L may never happen)
Files 200,000 to 500,000 bytes are only transmitted between midnight and 6AM.
There is a file-length limit of 500,000 bytes, so that larger files must be split up (use
the split command).
TeleNet is connected to the Port Selector (all of the Computer Center) {Network Address:
41587}
5:04 a.m.
On 7/9/21 8:17 PM, Mary Ann Horton wrote:
As I recall, Rogue began to appear in late 1980 or
early 81 at Berkeley.
I primarily remember it on the Vax. But I thought Toy et al originally
wrote it at UCSB and then it came to UCB.
I was at UCSB from the time the first Unix machine arrived until
1985. I'm not aware of any Rogue activity there.
The source was widely available and widely customized.
I think I brought
a copy with me to Bell Labs in 1981 where Bob Flandrena eventually
sprouted the "brogue" variant. Some of the monsters could eat into the
walls between rooms, and when there was a line of several chasing you
down a hallway, one or two of them would pull around to pass... Brogue
worked on my new curses, it was in effect part of the test.
I heard there was a version that contained Ed Gould roaming around.
Jon
9:09 p.m.
On 7/9/21 10:04 PM, Jon Forrest wrote:
On 7/9/21 8:17 PM, Mary Ann Horton wrote:
The brain synapses have grown dusty. I meant UC Santa Cruz.
As I recall, Rogue began to appear in late 1980
or early 81 at
Berkeley. I primarily remember it on the Vax. But I thought Toy et al
originally wrote it at UCSB and then it came to UCB.
I was at UCSB from the time the first Unix machine arrived until
1985. I'm not aware of any Rogue activity there.
2 Jul
2 Jul
1:11 p.m.
Glenn wrote up a brief history where he says it was first distributed with 4.2bsd.
https://web.archive.org/web/19980625212119/http://www.wichman.org/roguehist…
@ Fortune Systems in 1983/83 we had 3-4 college students working for a contract company
Santa Cruz Operations(?) doing testing for us. He was one of them and later we hired him
full time. I didn’t interact with him much though and once I quit Fortune I lost track of
him. I think initially we had only a rogue binary on 4.1 running on VAX780 but I do not
recall if he brought it to Fortune. Someone later ported it to the Fortune machine. I
used to play Rogue while waiting for kernel compiles to finish. A few years ago I got it
on FreeBSD and my muscle memory came back 100%!
On Jul 2, 2021, at 5:16 AM, Dan Cross
<crossd(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On Fri, Jul 2, 2021 at 7:40 AM <arnold(a)skeeve.com> wrote:
Is the rogue source extant? I remember many
people spending many
hours on rogue on the 4.[12] BSD vax at Georgia Tech.
ISTR that rogue only came as a binary, there was no source.
It is; it looks like it was first distributed with 4.3BSD-Tahoe. The sources there are
listed as "public domain rogue", but I'm not sure about the provenance of
that code.
- Dan C.
> Arnold
>
> Dan Cross <crossd(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Thanks, Clem. I'm curious what other lore is out there: my suspicion is
> > that rogue never ran on vanilla v6, but it would be great to validate.
> >
> > On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 10:51 PM Clem Cole <clemc(a)ccc.com> wrote:
> >
> > > I first got it on V7, as I said on our 11/70 for sure but I don’t remember
> > > if we had it on the 11/60 before that.
> > >
> > > On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 10:07 PM Dan Cross <crossd(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >> What was the first machine to run rogue? I understand that it was
written
> > >> by Glenn Wichman and Michael Toy at UC Santa Cruz ca. 1980, using the
> > >> `curses` library (Ken Arnold's original, not Mary Ann's
rewrite). I've seen
> > >> at least one place that indicates it first ran on 6th Edition, but
that
> > >> doesn't sound right to me. The first reference I can find in BSD
is in 2.79
> > >> ("rogue.doc"), which also appears to be the first release to
ship curses.
> > >>
> > >> Anyone have any info? Thanks!
> > >>
> > >> - Dan C.
> > >>
> > >> --
> > > Sent from a handheld expect more typos than usual
> > > 
1:22 p.m.
Ken Arnold posted the original source to
https://sourceforge.net/projects/rogue/ back in 2000.
On Fri, Jul 2, 2021 at 9:12 AM Bakul Shah <bakul(a)iitbombay.org> wrote:
Glenn wrote up a brief history where he says it was
first distributed with
4.2bsd.
https://web.archive.org/web/19980625212119/http://www.wichman.org/roguehist…
@ Fortune Systems in 1983/83 we had 3-4 college students working for a
contract company Santa Cruz Operations(?) doing testing for us. He was one
of them and later we hired him full time. I didn’t interact with him much
though and once I quit Fortune I lost track of him. I think initially we
had only a rogue binary on 4.1 running on VAX780 but I do not recall if he
brought it to Fortune. Someone later ported it to the Fortune machine. I
used to play Rogue while waiting for kernel compiles to finish. A few years
ago I got it on FreeBSD and my muscle memory came back 100%!
On Jul 2, 2021, at 5:16 AM, Dan Cross <crossd(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On Fri, Jul 2, 2021 at 7:40 AM <arnold(a)skeeve.com> wrote:
Is the rogue source extant? I remember many
people spending many
hours on rogue on the 4.[12] BSD vax at Georgia Tech.
ISTR that rogue only came as a binary, there was no source.
It is; it looks like it was first distributed with 4.3BSD-Tahoe. The
sources there are listed as "public domain rogue", but I'm not sure about
the provenance of that code.
- Dan C.
Arnold
Dan Cross <crossd(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Thanks, Clem. I'm curious what other lore is
out there: my suspicion is
that rogue never ran on vanilla v6, but it would be great to validate.
On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 10:51 PM Clem Cole <clemc(a)ccc.com> wrote:
> I first got it on V7, as I said on our 11/70 for sure but I don’t
remember
> if we had it on the 11/60 before that.
>
> On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 10:07 PM Dan Cross <crossd(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> What was the first machine to run rogue? I understand that it was
written
>> by Glenn Wichman and Michael Toy at UC
Santa Cruz ca. 1980, using the
>> `curses` library (Ken Arnold's original, not Mary Ann's rewrite).
I've seen
>> at least one place that indicates it
first ran on 6th Edition, but
that
>> doesn't sound right to me. The
first reference I can find in BSD is
in 2.79
>> ("rogue.doc"), which also
appears to be the first release to ship
curses.
>>
>> Anyone have any info? Thanks!
>>
>> - Dan C.
>>
>> --
> Sent from a handheld expect more typos than usual
>
3 Jul
3 Jul
1:10 a.m.
Ah thanks, very cool. Btw, Ken Arnold, Michael Toy, and Glenn Wichman were
all on a panel discussing rogue and Ken mentioned that source listing. Some
folks might find it interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaB7iQhts_c
Thanks!
- Dan C.
On Fri, Jul 2, 2021 at 9:22 AM Richard Salz <rich.salz(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Ken Arnold posted the original source to
https://sourceforge.net/projects/rogue/ back in 2000.
On Fri, Jul 2, 2021 at 9:12 AM Bakul Shah <bakul(a)iitbombay.org> wrote:
> Glenn wrote up a brief history where he says it was first distributed
> with 4.2bsd.
>
> https://web.archive.org/web/19980625212119/http://www.wichman.org/roguehist…
>
> @ Fortune Systems in 1983/83 we had 3-4 college students working for a
> contract company Santa Cruz Operations(?) doing testing for us. He was one
> of them and later we hired him full time. I didn’t interact with him much
> though and once I quit Fortune I lost track of him. I think initially we
> had only a rogue binary on 4.1 running on VAX780 but I do not recall if he
> brought it to Fortune. Someone later ported it to the Fortune machine. I
> used to play Rogue while waiting for kernel compiles to finish. A few years
> ago I got it on FreeBSD and my muscle memory came back 100%!
>
> On Jul 2, 2021, at 5:16 AM, Dan Cross <crossd(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On Fri, Jul 2, 2021 at 7:40 AM <arnold(a)skeeve.com> wrote:
>
>> Is the rogue source extant? I remember many people spending many
>> hours on rogue on the 4.[12] BSD vax at Georgia Tech.
>>
>> ISTR that rogue only came as a binary, there was no source.
>>
>
> It is; it looks like it was first distributed with 4.3BSD-Tahoe. The
> sources there are listed as "public domain rogue", but I'm not sure
about
> the provenance of that code.
>
> - Dan C.
>
>
> Arnold
>>
>> Dan Cross <crossd(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > Thanks, Clem. I'm curious what other lore is out there: my suspicion
is
>> > that rogue never ran on vanilla v6, but it would be great to validate.
>> >
>> > On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 10:51 PM Clem Cole <clemc(a)ccc.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > > I first got it on V7, as I said on our 11/70 for sure but I don’t
>> remember
>> > > if we had it on the 11/60 before that.
>> > >
>> > > On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 10:07 PM Dan Cross <crossd(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
>> > >
>> > >> What was the first machine to run rogue? I understand that it was
>> written
>> > >> by Glenn Wichman and Michael Toy at UC Santa Cruz ca. 1980, using
>> the
>> > >> `curses` library (Ken Arnold's original, not Mary Ann's
rewrite).
>> I've seen
>> > >> at least one place that indicates it first ran on 6th Edition, but
>> that
>> > >> doesn't sound right to me. The first reference I can find in
BSD is
>> in 2.79
>> > >> ("rogue.doc"), which also appears to be the first release
to ship
>> curses.
>> > >>
>> > >> Anyone have any info? Thanks!
>> > >>
>> > >> - Dan C.
>> > >>
>> > >> --
>> > > Sent from a handheld expect more typos than usual
>> > >
>>
>
2 Jul
2 Jul
1:04 p.m.
On Fri, Jul 2, 2021 at 7:40 AM <arnold(a)skeeve.com> wrote:
Is the rogue source extant?
Yes -- but ...
ISTR that rogue only came as a binary, there was no source.
That was true at first, certainly the original binary was passed around.
It might have been an early net.noise pass around, but ISTR for Tektronix
on V7 I got the binary from someone at UCB directly -- Mark Bales, maybe,
who was a UCB doing a summer Internship and he may have brought them with
him.
The sources were later released as part of a CSRG release in the post 4.2
timeframe ??reno/tahoe I think??, but by then the binary for the Vax was
pretty popular and the sources had begun to sneak out - as I know I had
them at Masscomp and Sun had them too. Paul Cantrell (of video teco fame)
created a color version of it and IIRC may have added some other graphics
when running on a Masscomp tube.
ᐧ
13 Jul
13 Jul
5:48 p.m.
You could buy source for a version of rogue from the AT&T Software
Toolchest. We bought a copy and ran it on CTIX and 4.2BSD, among
others. I don't recall any portability issues, and have long forgotten
everything related to licensing, code provenance, etc.
--lyndon
3 Jul
3 Jul
2:21 a.m.
Quoting from David Craddock's book, Dungeon Hacks (2015), pages 34-35:
By the time Toy and Wichman started at UC Santa Cruz,
BSD UNIX had entered
widespread usage across UC campuses and was branching out to other schools.
Each new version of BSD, released on cassette tape, included handy programs
written by Joy and other hackers. One program was curses, written by Ken
Arnold. Arnold had written curses according to the UNIX creed: a simple
tool fashioned for a specific purpose. Wielding curses like a paintbrush,
users could place text such as letters, numbers, and symbols at any
location on the screen.
The moment he used curses, Toy saw its potential. In 1980, he went to
Wichman and suggested they use curses to create a
graphical adventure game
with a twist. Unlike Colossal Cave Adventure and its derivatives, their
game would construct brand new environments and challenges every time. An
avid Dungeons & Dragons player, he invented a fantasy-themed setting and
premise. Players would assume the identity of an adventurer who entered the
Dungeons of Doom, a series of levels filled with monsters and treasure.
Wichman loved the idea and dubbed the game Rogue. "I think the name just
came to me. Names needed to be short because you
invoked a program by
typing its name in a command line. I liked the idea of a rogue. We were
coming from a Dungeons & Dragons background, but we were creating a
single-player game. You weren't going down into the dungeon with a party.
The idea was that this is a person going off on his or her own. It captured
the theme very succinctly."
Apropos of UNIX, Toy chose to write Rogue in the C language. C produced
fast code, while BASIC was slower and meant for
smaller programs. Wichman,
still a few steps behind Toy in programming prowess, learned C by watching
Toy program their game. "The early alpha versions of Rogue were probably
all my code, but Glenn [Wichman] made lots of contributions in terms of
design," Toy recalled. "I think it's quite fair to say that the game was
a
pretty straight collaboration between Glenn [Wichman], Ken [Arnold], and me
by the time it was done. I feel pretty good about that."
Toy and Wichman realized they wouldn't be able to stay at school during all
hours to write their game. Fortunately, they
didn't need to. As employees
of the computer science division, they had special lab privileges. Setting
up an ADM-3a terminal in their apartment, they could dial into the VAX
11/780 shunted off in a basement somewhere at UC Santa Cruz. The connection
was established through their 300-baud modem -- a device that would take
several minutes to transmit the text on an average-length Wikipedia page
today -- enabling them to write the vast majority of Rogue from the comfort
of their apartment.
Craddock's notes explain that the quotes of Michael Toy and Glenn Wichman
"come from interviews conducted via phone, Skype, and email over 2012-2014."
I think you must be right about the first machine being something running
BSD UNIX.
Matt
On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 8:07 PM Dan Cross <crossd(a)gmail.com> wrote:
What was the first machine to run rogue? I understand
that it was written
by Glenn Wichman and Michael Toy at UC Santa Cruz ca. 1980, using the
`curses` library (Ken Arnold's original, not Mary Ann's rewrite). I've
seen
at least one place that indicates it first ran on 6th Edition, but that
doesn't sound right to me. The first reference I can find in BSD is in 2.79
("rogue.doc"), which also appears to be the first release to ship curses.
Anyone have any info? Thanks!
- Dan C.
2:15 p.m.
On Fri, Jul 2, 2021 at 10:22 PM Matt Day <fjarlq(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I think you must be right about the first machine
being something running
BSD UNIX.
Be careful when you say 'BSD'-- when people say "BSD UNIX"
they
*usually mean* a Unix release post-VAX support (*a.k.a.* 3BSD).
We know for a fact that Rogue definitely ran on 16-bit PDP-11's - it's an
open question of it needed the '17th bit' (*a.k.a.* separate I/D of
the 11/45 class). As I said, I had on the TekLab's 11/70 in those days and
I think I got it from Mark Bales, who was a UCB student in the CAD group
which I would later join as a grad student.
Plus Ken Arnold was originally part of the Ingres group, which famously had
the only ArpaNet connection on campus at the time (Ing70 - which I have
forgotten what it's one letter 'Berk-Net' id was -- Mary Ann might
remember
- *i.e*. all external email was shipped across the Berknet to Ing70 for
processing).
The original BSD (*a.k.a.* what we call 1BSD on this mailing list) and
2BSD, were already in the wild particularly at other University sites,
since 1BSD had UCB Pascal in it and many schools in those days were using
Pascal as their teaching language. But ... if you look at the tapes, there
are tools and the C-shell, ex, and other tidbits, but the *kernel* running
at UCB in those days is very much V6 and later V7 based - maybe with a few
changes like some performance tweaks for nami and moving the I/O buffers
(but those were from other places).
The system people ran in those days (particularly on PDP-11s) is not nearly
what we now think of as a 'pure-joy.' Truth is, until 4.1BSD, that is
really were 'BSD' starts to take an identity of its own as being distinctly
different from Research and both being loved and loathed by many -- Rob's
'cat -v' paper *et al.*.
From the timing, it is also quite possible Toy and
Wichman had either a
3BSD or very early 4BSD Vax or just as likely V7 with 2BSD
loaded.
Just an old f*art who was there chiming in ... :-)
Clem
ᐧ
3:08 p.m.
On Sat, Jul 3, 2021 at 8:16 AM Clem Cole <clemc(a)ccc.com> wrote:
On Fri, Jul 2, 2021 at 10:22 PM Matt Day <fjarlq(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Rough timeline
V6 mid 75
1BSD mid 77 (pascal, ex, but no vi)
2BSD late 78 (vi, though from a 1979 copy in tuhs no curses yet, but
with termcapish things dated April 79)
V7 early 79
3BSD late 79
2BSD April 80 (the 2.79 in the archives, by this point curses was
added to the tape)
4BSD mid 80 (with curses)
2.8/4.1BSD mid 81 (first unified kernel+userland pdp-11 distro)
So curses library wasn't on the 3bsd tape. It may have been on the 4bsd
tape: all I can find is libtermcap on tuhs, but kirk's archive has a
curses library data October 1980. The late 2BSD tapes (called 2.79BSD in
our archive) is the earliest artifact I can find. It appears curses wasn't
widely available until midish 1980: the 2.79BSD tape has a July 17, 1980
date on the docs (being the earliest artifact I could find) and a Jan 1981
on the sources. The earliest net.sources archive I can find starts in 1982.
The latest 2BSD tape we have in the archive from April 1979 does not have
it.
A binary of rogue is on the 2.8BSD and 4.1BSD tapes. 2.8 has 'version 3.4'
but no sources and 4.1 has vers 4.22 in a 4.0 upgrade directory, but no
sources either:
-r--r--r-- 1 root wheel 70364 May 21 1981 ./2.8/usr/bin.v7/ucb/rogue
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root wheel 96356 Mar 13 1982 ./4.1.snap/usr/games/rogue
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root wheel 96356 Mar 13 1982
./4.1/4.0.upgrade/usr/games/rogue
Even in 4.2 it looks like most of rogue was distributed as a binary .o
file, and needed the updated net.sources version of libcurses, distributed
with 4.2bsd.
So from a tracing the artifacts for libcurses, we get an interesting
diversion, but nothing conclusive.
Warner
I think you must be right about the first machine
being something running
BSD UNIX.
Be careful when you say 'BSD'-- when people say "BSD UNIX"
they
*usually mean* a Unix release post-VAX support (*a.k.a.* 3BSD).
We know for a fact that Rogue definitely ran on 16-bit PDP-11's - it's an
open question of it needed the '17th bit' (*a.k.a.* separate I/D of
the 11/45 class). As I said, I had on the TekLab's 11/70 in those days and
I think I got it from Mark Bales, who was a UCB student in the CAD group
which I would later join as a grad student.
Plus Ken Arnold was originally part of the Ingres group, which famously
had the only ArpaNet connection on campus at the time (Ing70 - which I have
forgotten what it's one letter 'Berk-Net' id was -- Mary Ann might
remember
- *i.e*. all external email was shipped across the Berknet to Ing70 for
processing).
The original BSD (*a.k.a.* what we call 1BSD on this mailing list) and
2BSD, were already in the wild particularly at other University sites,
since 1BSD had UCB Pascal in it and many schools in those days were using
Pascal as their teaching language. But ... if you look at the tapes, there
are tools and the C-shell, ex, and other tidbits, but the *kernel* running
at UCB in those days is very much V6 and later V7 based - maybe with a few
changes like some performance tweaks for nami and moving the I/O buffers
(but those were from other places).
The system people ran in those days (particularly on PDP-11s) is not
nearly what we now think of as a 'pure-joy.' Truth is, until 4.1BSD, that
is really were 'BSD' starts to take an identity of its own as being
distinctly different from Research and both being loved and loathed by many
-- Rob's 'cat -v' paper *et al.*.
From the timing, it is also quite possible Toy and Wichman had either a
3BSD or very early 4BSD Vax or just as likely V7 with 2BSD loaded.
10:25 p.m.
Plus Ken Arnold was originally part of the Ingres
group, which
famously had the only ArpaNet connection on campus at the time (Ing70
- which I have forgotten what it's one letter 'Berk-Net' id was --
Mary Ann might remember - /i.e/. all external email was shipped across
the Berknet to Ing70 for processing).
Actually, I don't recall Ken actually working on Ingres, although it's
not impossible — he certainly did work at Britton Lee, which was an
Ingres spin-off. But lots of people in the department had access to our
machine, almost certainly including Ken. But resources were limited and
the entire department had to compete for the two terminal lines
available at the time, which is why I wrote delivermail (later sendmail)
in the first place.
The "one letter berk-net id" of ing70 was "i". At the time of the
ARPAnet it was running a rather customized V6 that (if I recall
correctly) we got from Greg Chesson. It was connected via a VDH (Very
Distant Host) interface to the IMP at LBL — essentially a six-foot-high
9600 baud modem. ingvax was "j", but the ARPAnet code never ran on that
hardware.
eric
1025
days inactive
1036
days old
21 comments
14 participants
participants (14)
-
Adam Thornton -
arnold＠skeeve.com -
Bakul Shah -
Brad Spencer -
Clem Cole -
Dan Cross -
Eric Allman -
Erik E. Fair -
Jon Forrest -
Lyndon Nerenberg (VE7TFX/VE6BBM) -
Mary Ann Horton -
Matt Day -
Richard Salz -
Warner Losh