[game_preservation] Hunt the Wumpus - 1972 or 1973?

Devin Monnens dmonnens at gmail.com
Mon Mar 22 14:00:07 EDT 2010


Wikipedia states that Hunt the Wumpus "was noticed on mainframe computers as
early as 1972". However, in Gregory Yob's article for Creative Computing
(published Oct/Nov 1975), he states that he designed that game "about two
years ago", placing it squarely in 1973. He says he dropped it off at the
People's Computer Company and about one month afterward went to the Synergy
Conference at Stanford (held May 9-13, 1973). This would mean he built the
game probably in April 1973 - or at least dropped it off at PCC in late
March, early April. From the way he tells the story, it sounds like he built
it in one afternoon (which would make more sense if he was visiting out of
state - though I can't get confirmation that he was a Dartmouth alumni
because Wikipedia is the sole source of info - and I think there it's
referencing Dot Eaters.). So...was this built on a teletype at Dartmouth in
1972 or in California in 1973?

Also...Greg Yob passed away in 2005, which I wasn't aware of. However, he
has been cryofrozen and so when the technology becomes available, we can
resurrect him and ask him more about Wumpus. I can envision people from the
future resurrecting Yob to hunt real wumpuses (Wumpi?) that have infested
the Arizona desert after the apocalypse.

--
Devin Monnens
www.deserthat.com

The sleep of Reason produces monsters.
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