Talk:Don Woods
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This is a cool story. However, I don't know that it belongs in an encyclopedia article. Anecdotes are fine, but more facts would be better. - Dreamword 20:52 Feb 26, 2003 (UTC)
Makes sense to me. - Hephaestos 02:21 Mar 14, 2003 (UTC)
(Personal Story)
An old-school hacker, great programmer, and all-around cool guy. I used to work with Don in the mid-1990's at ClariNet Communications and he had a map on his office wall that a fan of Colossal Cave Adventure had drawn by hand showing the layout of the entire cave system, in 3D. It was really cool. :-)
The funny thing was, I didn't know Don had done Adventure for the first month or two that we worked together, and one day I saw someone posting on Usenet and getting all excited flustered at hearing from "*THE* Don Woods".
Me: "Don, why does your name provoke such a reaction in people on the Net?"
Don: "Did you ever hear of an old text-based dungeon game called 'Adventure'?"
Me: "Oh yeah! I used to play that back in 1981 on Apple ][ computers! It was great!"
Don: "Most of the geeks in Silicon Valley say the same thing. I created it."
Me: "Oh." :-)
After that, we had numerous conversations about the game, and I got to see the latest versions he was working on. Even 20 years later, he continued to tweak and improve it, and often kept a copy running on a machine wherever he worked.
I haven't seen Don in about 4 years. If someone knows how to contact him, send him my way.
You can find out more about the history of the game and the later offshoots like Zork here.
perdurable ? -- Zoe
- Oddly, an actual word meaning "very durable" - so durable it can be considered permanent. ('per-' + 'durable' as an intensifier, like 'per-'+'lucid' -> 'pellucid'). I cannot myself say how perdurable Don Woods is, but I suspect he falls somewhat short of eternal. -- Someone else 03:57 Mar 14, 2003 (UTC)
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- In this context, does that make the use of the word POV? -- Zoe
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- Probably not, but I have no qualms about changing it to a word that won't make the reader go 'huh?' <G>. -- Someone else 04:13 Mar 14, 2003 (UTC)
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- After contacting the original author by the (nowadays nostalgic) means of sending an e-mail to crowther@sitename, where sitename was every host currently on the Internet...
Nostalgic? I believe spammers still use this technique. ( 15:53, 10 Jan 2004 (UTC)
[edit] can anyone fix dead link?
The "Are you really a wizard" link is dead, but I don't want to remove it in case anyone knows where that file can now be found. Allen 16:42, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
- Removed it. --Allen 07:15, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
