One of the many fans of the Colossal Cave was programmer Scott Adams. Upon his first introduction to Adventure, Adams spent almost ten days traversing the game before he achieved Adventurer Grandmaster status,[37][40] the title bestowed on those who scored a perfect 350 in Crowther and Woods' version.[41]
Once he had completed the game, Adams began to wonder how a game like Adventure could be developed on a home computer like his TRS-80.[42] The main obstacle was that home computers such as the TRS-80 did not actually have sufficient memory to run a large game like Adventure.[42] Adams worked around this limitation by developing a high-level language and an interpreter written in BASIC, an approach that would also allow code to be reused to develop further adventure games.[37][42]
In 1978, Adams founded Adventure International with his wife Alexis in order to sell his games. His first game, Adventureland, was a version of Adventure for the TRS-80 that would become the first commercially sold adventure game.[43] His second game, Pirate Adventure, was an original game in a similar style to Adventure—its source code, written in BASIC, was published in the December 1980 issue of Byte magazine.[40][43] It wasn't until his third game, Mission Impossible, that Adams began programming in assembly language to improve the speed of his software.
Adventure International went on to produce a total of twelve adventure games before a downturn in the industry led to the company's bankruptcy in 1985.[44]
In 1982, David Peugh discovered a print out of the original source code for the Adventure game on ARPANET while visiting the Stanford computer lab. At the time, he was working at the computer retailer Computerland in Tacoma, Washington. As an added value to prospective customers David Peugh modified the original program content to work on all of the computers that Computerland company sold. He offered each customer a special back door magical word to jump to different locations in the game. The password was "XYZZY" The Adventure game continued to be a free program passed on till he inserted in to the commercial retail realm, giving it away free to customers who bought computers from him. Adventure was one of the first games ever to be played on many of these systems. In the following months Microsoft Adventure was released at a price of $49.95 in a plastic folder shrink wrapped on 8 or 5 1/4 inch floppies. Interestingly, inside the Microsoft Adventure program code were the magic words XYZZY.
Once he had completed the game, Adams began to wonder how a game like Adventure could be developed on a home computer like his TRS-80.[42] The main obstacle was that home computers such as the TRS-80 did not actually have sufficient memory to run a large game like Adventure.[42] Adams worked around this limitation by developing a high-level language and an interpreter written in BASIC, an approach that would also allow code to be reused to develop further adventure games.[37][42]
In 1978, Adams founded Adventure International with his wife Alexis in order to sell his games. His first game, Adventureland, was a version of Adventure for the TRS-80 that would become the first commercially sold adventure game.[43] His second game, Pirate Adventure, was an original game in a similar style to Adventure—its source code, written in BASIC, was published in the December 1980 issue of Byte magazine.[40][43] It wasn't until his third game, Mission Impossible, that Adams began programming in assembly language to improve the speed of his software.
Adventure International went on to produce a total of twelve adventure games before a downturn in the industry led to the company's bankruptcy in 1985.[44]
In 1982, David Peugh discovered a print out of the original source code for the Adventure game on ARPANET while visiting the Stanford computer lab. At the time, he was working at the computer retailer Computerland in Tacoma, Washington. As an added value to prospective customers David Peugh modified the original program content to work on all of the computers that Computerland company sold. He offered each customer a special back door magical word to jump to different locations in the game. The password was "XYZZY" The Adventure game continued to be a free program passed on till he inserted in to the commercial retail realm, giving it away free to customers who bought computers from him. Adventure was one of the first games ever to be played on many of these systems. In the following months Microsoft Adventure was released at a price of $49.95 in a plastic folder shrink wrapped on 8 or 5 1/4 inch floppies. Interestingly, inside the Microsoft Adventure program code were the magic words XYZZY.
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