[TUHS] Searching for game history

[Jonathan Gray]

On Mon, Apr 28, 2025 at 06:12:55PM -0700, Brian "Beej" Hall wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> 
> I'm here with a Unix/Bell Labs history question at the suggestion of
> BWK. I have a bit of a computing mystery on my hands...
> 
> _Conquest_ is an old game that apparently came to life in Bell Labs, but
> no one seems to know anything more about it, including who the
> author is.
> 
> The instructions for the game[1] contain the following text at the
> bottom:
> 
>   Amiga port by Bob Shimbo, orginal author unknown.
> 
>   This game started life on a UNIX system at Bell Labs.  It was ported
>   to CP/M 80 by a Scott Kamin.  The manual was thrown together in an
>   afternoon. (Typos and corrections welcome).
> 
>   You can reach me through Compuserve (UID 70260,231) or TBBS of
>   colorado (303)-693-4735.
> 
> The LHA archive for the Amiga was packaged in 1986.
> 
> I did get in touch with Bob Shimbo, but he writes:
> 
>   You can imagine how long ago I did that port given I referenced my
>   Compuserve account.  I don't recall where I found the code originally.
>   Sorry.  We've been through 3 house moves since then and I don't know
>   where any references might have gotten to.
> 
> Scott Kamin--I found a reference to someone by his name in the CP/M
> world in the 80s in New Jersey. (Internet Archive has lots of old
> computer magazine scans and his name showed up in the classified ads.)
> And a search turned up a snail mail address for someone in the right age
> range living a few miles from the business listed in the ad. A Hail Mary
> snail mail got no reply.
> 
> Does any of it ring a bell, by any chance? I've begun the work of
> getting it to run on modern systems[2], and it would be great to be able
> to include more history in the man page.

An implementation of the Stellar Conquest board game?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_Conquest