[game_preservation] How to get old code running on a PDP-5/8 emulator

[Andrew Armstrong]

Fascinating stuff, interesting to see the inspirations and so forth 
around that time, I have no idea myself and most game history books just 
go with "Space War was cool and the first thingy on a mainframe! now 
leap ahead 10 years to some /real /games...".

Andrew

On 27/03/2010 16:19, Devin Monnens wrote:

> I've identified about the only game that seems to be a direct 

> inspiration of Spacewar (other than other Spacewar modifications, of 

> course). ICBM (DECUS 8-277) displays a UFO on the PDP-8's scope which 

> the player then must try to shoot down with a rocket. I'm not sure if 

> this game has already been emulated at the Computer History Museum, 

> but the code is freely available (in a somewhat illegible format due 

> to paper decay) through this link:

>

> http://www.pdp8online.com/pdp8cgi/query_docs/view.pl?id=339

>

> While I don't have time just now to transcribe and try running the 

> code myself (unless of course I want to spend all weekend on it when I 

> need to be finishing this paper - but hey, I might finish early :) The 

> code looks legible enough to write. Will a PDP-8 emulator take the 

> code as-is if it's written all down into a .txt file, or is there a 

> special format I need it in? I've never run a PDP-8 emulator before, 

> so I wouldn't have any idea if typing all that out would be the right 

> place to start.

>

> I am curious as to how this game looks and if it's going to be as 

> boring as I think it will ;-)

>

> I've also identified a version of Space War that might be the mythic 

> 'Snoopy and the Red Baron' described in Stewart Brand's Rolling Stones 

> article. This is probably just a straight-up Spacewar port to the LINC 

> with just the names changed. No code printout though...

>

> http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/decus/linc8/L-39_SPCWAR.pdf

>

> I also want to track down the original FOCAL version of Sumer (DECUS 

> FOCAL-5) and get that running, so I'll be looking for a PDP emulator 

> that can run FOCAL next!

>

> -- 

> Devin Monnens

> www.deserthat.com <http://www.deserthat.com>

>

> The sleep of Reason produces monsters.

>

>

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