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Cyhist Mar 11 1997 D
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Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 11:49:12 -0500
Reply-To: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> Sender: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> From: andrew stellman <roo@ANON.RAZORWIRE.COM>
Subject: Re: Zzyzx
In-Reply-To: <199703112111.NAA27720@proxy1.ba.best.com> MIME-Version: 1.0
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Community Memory: Discussion List on the History of Cyberspace ______________________________________________________________________
On Tue, 11 Mar 1997, Anthony Spataro wrote:
>Does anyone know where the word Zzyzx came from? I have seen it numerous times, both in the computer world and in the real world. I used to assume it came from the old Adventure came, where (if I recall correctly) it was a magic word used to teleport, or something like that. But driving up highway 51 toward Las Vegas last weekend, I saw a sign for "Zzyzx Road--2 miles."
if you mean "xyzzy," the first place i saw this word was as a magic word in the original PDP-10 Colossal Cave adventure. i first played it on a VAX 11/780, although it still survives to this day. it's distributed with BSDI/3.0, for example. nifty, eh?
this was one of the first games that people were widely addicted to. in fact, it was one of the first games *i* was addicted to! it's sort of a doom for the seventies, and it's still an effective timewaster. the Unix version is maintained by Jim Gillogly (jim@rand.org).
here's what the jargon file says about ADVENT, the original filename for the Colossal Cave adventure:
--
ADVENT
/ad'vent/ n. The prototypical computer adventure game, first implemented on the \{PDP-10\} by Will Crowther as an attempt at computer-refereed fantasy gaming, and expanded into a puzzle-oriented game by Don Woods. Now better known as Adventure, but the \{\{TOPS-10\}\} operating system permitted only 6-letter filenames. See also \{vadding\}.
This game defined the terse, dryly humorous style now expected in text adventure games, and popularized several tag lines that have become fixtures of hacker-speak: "A huge green fierce snake bars the way!" "I see no X here" (for some noun X). "You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike." "You are in a little maze of twisty passages, all different." The `magic words' \{xyzzy\} and \{plugh\} also derive from this game.
Crowther, by the way, participated in the exploration of the Mammoth & Flint Ridge cave system; it actually *has* a `Colossal Cave' and a `Bedquilt' as in the game, and the `Y2' that also turns up is cavers' jargon for a map reference to a secondary entrance.
>From Bill Bourn (30-Oct-95): I never got to play Adventure myself because
I translated that 36-bit fortran to PL/1 for VM/CMS. It wasn't an easy fit on the 32-bit IBM mainframe. I did get a kick out of watching my "testing" cadre stumble around the Colossal Cave though. --
incidentally, for all you PDP-10 fans, check out <http://http://www.inwap.com/pdp10/jargon.html> for a list of PDP-10 references in the jargon file. personally, i've never used a PDP-10, although a friend of mine has a PDP-11 clone with 8k of RAM and a lot of tubes. it doesn't have an OS, so he talks to it in octal opcodes.
andrew
______________________________________________________________________
Reply-To: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> Sender: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> From: andrew stellman <roo@ANON.RAZORWIRE.COM>
Subject: Re: Zzyzx
In-Reply-To: <199703112111.NAA27720@proxy1.ba.best.com> MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
______________________________________________________________________
Community Memory: Discussion List on the History of Cyberspace ______________________________________________________________________
On Tue, 11 Mar 1997, Anthony Spataro wrote:
>Does anyone know where the word Zzyzx came from? I have seen it numerous times, both in the computer world and in the real world. I used to assume it came from the old Adventure came, where (if I recall correctly) it was a magic word used to teleport, or something like that. But driving up highway 51 toward Las Vegas last weekend, I saw a sign for "Zzyzx Road--2 miles."
if you mean "xyzzy," the first place i saw this word was as a magic word in the original PDP-10 Colossal Cave adventure. i first played it on a VAX 11/780, although it still survives to this day. it's distributed with BSDI/3.0, for example. nifty, eh?
this was one of the first games that people were widely addicted to. in fact, it was one of the first games *i* was addicted to! it's sort of a doom for the seventies, and it's still an effective timewaster. the Unix version is maintained by Jim Gillogly (jim@rand.org).
here's what the jargon file says about ADVENT, the original filename for the Colossal Cave adventure:
--
ADVENT
/ad'vent/ n. The prototypical computer adventure game, first implemented on the \{PDP-10\} by Will Crowther as an attempt at computer-refereed fantasy gaming, and expanded into a puzzle-oriented game by Don Woods. Now better known as Adventure, but the \{\{TOPS-10\}\} operating system permitted only 6-letter filenames. See also \{vadding\}.
This game defined the terse, dryly humorous style now expected in text adventure games, and popularized several tag lines that have become fixtures of hacker-speak: "A huge green fierce snake bars the way!" "I see no X here" (for some noun X). "You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike." "You are in a little maze of twisty passages, all different." The `magic words' \{xyzzy\} and \{plugh\} also derive from this game.
Crowther, by the way, participated in the exploration of the Mammoth & Flint Ridge cave system; it actually *has* a `Colossal Cave' and a `Bedquilt' as in the game, and the `Y2' that also turns up is cavers' jargon for a map reference to a secondary entrance.
>From Bill Bourn (30-Oct-95): I never got to play Adventure myself because
I translated that 36-bit fortran to PL/1 for VM/CMS. It wasn't an easy fit on the 32-bit IBM mainframe. I did get a kick out of watching my "testing" cadre stumble around the Colossal Cave though. --
incidentally, for all you PDP-10 fans, check out <http://http://www.inwap.com/pdp10/jargon.html> for a list of PDP-10 references in the jargon file. personally, i've never used a PDP-10, although a friend of mine has a PDP-11 clone with 8k of RAM and a lot of tubes. it doesn't have an OS, so he talks to it in octal opcodes.
andrew
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