[TUHS] First machine to run rogue?

[Matt Day via TUHS]

On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 8:07 PM Dan Cross <crossd at 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.
>

This post by Glenn Wichman to net.games.rogue on 1984-04-06 explains rogue
was first developed on a PDP 11/70:

> Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
> Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site fortune.UUCP
> Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!we13!ihnp4!zehntel!dual!fortune!grw
> From: grw at fortune.UUCP (Glenn Wichman)
> Newsgroups: net.games.rogue
> Subject: Re: Rogue History: Information Desired
> Message-ID: <2980 at fortune.UUCP>
> Date: Fri, 6-Apr-84 17:48:26 EST
> Article-I.D.: fortune.2980
> Posted: Fri Apr  6 17:48:26 1984
> Date-Received: Sun, 8-Apr-84 01:15:55 EST
> References: <1599 at stolaf.UUCP>
> Organization: Fortune Systems, Redwood City, CA
> Lines: 39
>
>
> 1.  When was the first Rogue version made and where?  Who did it?
>
> The first version of Rogue was written in the fall of 1980 in
> an apartment in Santa Cruz colloquially known as "Camelot".
> The original idea for the game came suddenly and simultaneously
> to the two roommates, Michael C. Toy and Glenn R. Wichman.  The
> name "rogue" was given the game by Glenn.  It was written in C
> under UNIX on a PDP 11/70 at U.C. Santa Cruz.  It was one of the
> earliest programs to use the "curses" terminal-independent cursor
> library developed by Ken Arnold.  Later, (winter of '81) development
> of the game moved from Santa Cruz to Berkeley, where Ken Arnold
> got involved.
>
> 2.  Did it catch on immediately or was it another Lord of the Rings?
>
> It caught on immediately, like wildfire.  It had already become
> the most popular game at UC Santa Cruz even before there were
> monsters in the game, and all you could do was explore levels.
>
> 3.  When did the differing versions begin proliferating and what are
> they?
>
> I can't give a complete answer to this.  The current official
> version that is most widespread is 5.3.  A group in San Diego
> hacked up a version called ad_d, and a group in the midwest
> came up with the "Super-rogue" enhancements.  There are also
> tons of local mutants.
>
> 4.  What can be expected in the near future?
>
> Rogue is now available for the IBM-PC.  Most of our development
> energies are going towards the home computer market now.  I
> won't say anything more except exciting things can be expected
> in the future from the rogue people (Michael Toy, Jon Lane, Ken
> Arnold, Glenn Wichman).
>
>
>         -Glenn R. Wichman

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