358:. He began climbing there in the 1950s and continues to climb. He made the first ascent of several classic routes including Arrow, Hawk, Moonlight, and Senté. Some of these routes sparked controversy because protection bolts were placed on rappel, a new tactic that Crowther and several others began to use at the time. The community reaction to this technique was an important part of the evolution of climbing ethics in the Shawangunks and beyond.
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fantasy of my caving, and also would be a game for the kids, and perhaps some aspects of the
Dungeons and Dragons that I had been playing. My idea was that it would be a computer game that would not be intimidating to non-computer people, and that was one of the reasons why I made it so that the player directs the game with natural language input, instead of more standardized commands. My kids thought it was a lot of fun.
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261:, the player moves around an imaginary cave system by entering simple, two-word commands and reading text describing the result. Crowther used his extensive knowledge of cave exploration as a basis for the gameplay, and there are many similarities between the locations in the game and those in Mammoth Cave, particularly its
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in
Kentucky in particular. Suddenly, I got involved in a divorce, and that left me a bit pulled apart in various ways. In particular I was missing my kids. Also the caving had stopped, because that had become awkward, so I decided I would fool around and write a program that was a re-creation in
343:. Indeed, even during his time working at BBN, his colleagues noticed that Crowther spent a fair amount of time doing chin-ups in doorframes, which apparently helped him concentrate.
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was not a coincidence. Crowther and his first wife Pat were active and dedicated cavers in the 1960s and early 1970s—both were part of many expeditions to connect the
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development team. His implementation of a distributed distance vector routing system for the ARPAnet was an important early step in the evolution of the
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bought the part of BBN where
Crowther was working. He continued to work for Cisco until his retirement in 1997 to live in
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during the late 1950s and early 1960s, Crowther also played an important role in the development of rock climbing in the
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276:, seeking his permission to enhance the game. Crowther agreed, and Woods developed several enhanced versions on a
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Following his divorce from his wife, Crowther used his spare time to develop a text-based adventure game in
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Somewhere Nearby is
Colossal Cave: Examining Will Crowther's Original "Adventure" in Code and in Kentucky
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and every year helped teach rock climbing to beginners. He continued doing that each spring until 2013.
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284:(SAIL) where he worked. Over the following decade the game gained in popularity, being ported to many
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from 1976 to 1983. During this period he met and married Nancy
Sanders Burnes in 1980 in
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The basic game structure invented by
Crowther (and based in part on the example of the
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cave systems. Pat played a key role in the
September 9, 1972 expedition that finally
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and elsewhere. In 1983 he left Xerox and went back to Bolt
Beranek and Newman in
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Dibbell, Julian: "A Marketable Wonder - Spelunking the
American Imagination",
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Yankee Rock & Ice: A History of
Climbing in the Northeastern United States
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from 1975 onward, a seminal computer game that influenced the first decade of
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Peterson, Dale: "Genesis II: Creation and Recreation with Computers", (1983).
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as the title that inspired them to create their game. They later founded
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Laura Waterman; Guy Waterman; Michael Wejchert (October 1, 2018).
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Computing in the Middle Ages: A View From the Trenches 1955-1983
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In the spring of 1976, he was contacted by Stanford researcher
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at the time, and also I had been actively exploring in caves -
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I had been involved in a non-computer role-playing game called
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374:. The two of them did a lot of rock climbing with friends in
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section. In 1975, Crowther released the game on the early
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Twisty Little Passages: An Approach To Interactive Fiction
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Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction
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Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction
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Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction
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Roger W. Brucker; Richard A. Watson (February 16, 1987).
452:(Interview). Interviewed by Judy O'Neill. Cambridge, MA:
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Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins Of The Internet
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IMP Team (left to right): Truett Thatch, Bill Bartell,
111:(until 1976), Nancy S. Crowther (married 1980-present)
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Game Developers Conference Pioneer Award recipients
319:and published a series of popular text adventures.
526:Genesis II, Creation and Recreation with Computers
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660:Katie Hafner; Matthew Lyon (January 21, 1998).
529:. Reston Publishing Company. pp. 187–188.
188:(BBN), where he was part of the original small
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760:Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution
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29:Computer programmer and caver (born 1936)
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205:Massachusetts Institute of Technology
80:Massachusetts Institute of Technology
441:"An Interview with William Crowther"
463:from the original on April 30, 2018
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666:. Simon and Schuster. p. 98.
550:Evans, Claire L. (July 15, 2020).
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693:. Stackpole Books. p. 195.
412:Robert Kahn (computer scientist)
752:Where Wizards Stay Up Late, by
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307:and the team that created the
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842:American video game designers
741:. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
502:. MIT Press. pp. 85–97.
481:: CS1 maint: date and year (
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382:. He became active with the
815:Digital Humanities Quarterly
397:with his second wife Nancy.
327:The location of the game in
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847:Interactive fiction writers
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120:(born 1936) is an American
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639:. SIU Press. p. 299.
132:. He is the co-creator of
769:The Soul of a New Machine
612:. MIT Press. p. 89.
582:. MIT Press. p. 88.
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199:Crowther met and married
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380:Cambridge, Massachusetts
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186:Bolt Beranek and Newman
135:Colossal Cave Adventure
837:Video game programmers
606:Nick Montfort (2005).
576:Nick Montfort (2005).
523:Dale Peterson (1983).
496:Nick Montfort (2005).
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207:, where he received a
203:while studying at the
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372:Palo Alto, California
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184:and internet-pioneer
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796:IMP team photo, BBN
240:Dungeons and Dragons
726:. New York: Knopf.
366:Crowther worked at
346:As a member of the
341:made the connection
122:computer programmer
95:Computer programmer
439:(March 12, 1990).
395:Delanson, New York
182:defense contractor
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818:1:2, summer 2007.
808:Jerz, D.G. 2007.
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437:Crowther, William
286:operating systems
142:and inspired the
140:video game design
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109:Patricia Crowther
16:(Redirected from
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857:1936 births
764:Steven Levy
407:Frank Heart
352:Shawangunks
337:Flint Ridge
171:Frank Heart
167:Robert Kahn
163:Dave Walden
826:Categories
423:References
368:Xerox PARC
305:Marc Blank
147:game genre
561:March 23,
313:Adventure
274:Don Woods
258:Adventure
227:on BBN's
219:Adventure
215:in 1958.
153:Biography
105:Spouse(s)
467:July 29,
458:Archived
401:See also
376:Yosemite
263:Bedquilt
194:Internet
556:OneZero
333:Mammoth
317:Infocom
267:ARPAnet
225:Fortran
213:physics
190:ARPAnet
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229:PDP-10
128:, and
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461:(PDF)
444:(PDF)
299:text
297:ELIZA
126:caver
99:caver
785:ISBN
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614:ISBN
584:ISBN
563:2022
531:ISBN
504:ISBN
483:link
469:2020
335:and
309:Zork
290:CP/M
209:B.S.
54:Born
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251:In
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