GrogHeads Forum

Digital Gaming => Computer Gaming => Topic started by: bayonetbrant on September 27, 2012, 05:28:50 AM

Title: Digital Wargame from 1973 Still Playable (!?)
Post by: bayonetbrant on September 27, 2012, 05:28:50 AM
http://empire.openmpe.com/empire/

QuoteWelcome to the game of Empire on the HPe3000. It is a wargame of strategy originally developed at the Evergreen State College in Olympia Washington in 1973 on an HP2000C computer. It allows for up to 255 simultaneous players at any one time. The game is played using a terminal emulator with "Telnet" or "VT/Mgr" protocol

That game's nearly as old as I am.
Anyone know of any computer games still publicly live that are older?
Title: Re: Digital Wargame from 1973 Still Playable (!?)
Post by: Staggerwing on September 27, 2012, 05:42:13 AM
Hunt the Wumpus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunt_the_Wumpus)(1972-73)  is still around on many systems and has been ported to java.
Title: Re: Digital Wargame from 1973 Still Playable (!?)
Post by: LongBlade on September 27, 2012, 06:58:39 AM
Somewhere close to that time frame is a Star Trek game I saw at a local university. I have no idea what has happened to the code.

<quick google search>

Found this. Not sure it's the game I'm thinking of or not.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_%28text_game%29
Title: Re: Digital Wargame from 1973 Still Playable (!?)
Post by: LongBlade on September 27, 2012, 07:00:47 AM
I think this is the game: http://www.almy.us/sst.html
Title: Re: Digital Wargame from 1973 Still Playable (!?)
Post by: Toonces on September 27, 2012, 12:44:05 PM
I got that Star Trek game for my Kindle Fire and it's just like I remember.
Title: Re: Digital Wargame from 1973 Still Playable (!?)
Post by: MarkShot on September 27, 2012, 08:43:03 PM
There is a whole set of Atari arcade games for iOS including the original Pong. That's pretty old!
Title: Re: Digital Wargame from 1973 Still Playable (!?)
Post by: Nefaro on September 27, 2012, 11:51:31 PM
Quote from: LongBlade on September 27, 2012, 06:58:39 AM
Somewhere close to that time frame is a Star Trek game I saw at a local university. I have no idea what has happened to the code.

<quick google search>

Found this. Not sure it's the game I'm thinking of or not.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_%28text_game%29

One of my favorite old C64 games was an evolution of these games:

Star Fleet I: The War Begins
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Fleet_I:_The_War_Begins

(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gb64.com%2FScreenshots%2FS%2FStar_Fleet_-_The_War_Begins%21.png&hash=922715ae48cf8c288ef262935496ef34e9d43129)

I played the ever-lovin' shnit out of '86 release of that (IIRC the original was in '82).  I'd still buy something similar if there were a modern indie released like this, which still had all the bells & whistles (and more).  It was the best of it's kind as far as ASCII starship commander "sims" went.

I had an image copy of the DOS disk(s) awhile back, but couldn't get it to run in DOSbox.  :-[    Was very sad.  :-[ :-[   I never found any info on whether people had got it running and/or any specifics to do so in DOSbox.  If someone knows.. for the love of photon torpedoes, Tell Me!! :-*
Title: Re: Digital Wargame from 1973 Still Playable (!?)
Post by: Nefaro on September 28, 2012, 01:15:47 AM
Ha!  Now that I mentioned it, I went digging and found a working DOS version.  Ha!
Title: Re: Digital Wargame from 1973 Still Playable (!?)
Post by: Rekim on September 29, 2012, 06:08:21 PM
I came across this article today on an oldie (circa '62) called Spacewar!

http://pdp-1.computerhistory.org/pdp-1/index.php?f=theme&s=4&ss=3

It ran on a PDP-1 (sounds like there may be a working copy at the Computer History Museum), had a graphical display, and could even use a joystick as a controller (using recycled control sticks from fighter jets!!)