[Simh] Quest from 1979 on RSTS/E V06C-03 in Simh
Lyle Bickley
lbickley at bickleywest.com
Sat Dec 29 12:43:24 EST 2018
Thanks, Will!
I played "Adventure" on RSTS/E back in the seventies. Now I'll give
"Quest" a shot on SIMH (or my 11/83 w/RSTS/E)...
Cheers,
Lyle
--
On Sat, 29 Dec 2018 09:42:49 -0600
Will Senn <will.senn at gmail.com> wrote:
> All,
>
> I had some fun over the past few days playing around with BASIC-PLUS
> and thought I would share it with you. I resurrected an old BASIC
> game and played it on SIMH running RSTS/E V06C-03 and BASIC-PLUS
> mostly to learn more about BASIC, my first language back in the day,
> but also to play an old style adventure inspired game that was
> originally written for a Commodore Pet 2001, the first computer I
> ever programmed.
>
> Read on for some old time fun and reminiscence.
>
> TLDR (links at bottom of email):
> 1. Grab SIMH
> 2. Grab RSTS/E V06C-03
> 3. Grab the source code
> 4. Fire up RSTS/E
> 5. Paste the source code into the BASIC-PLUS runtime
> 6. Play the game until you're weary of being lost
> 7. Read the code to 'cheat'
>
> I wanted to learn BASIC "over the weekend". I found two books at the
> used bookstore that looked interesting on the subject:
>
> 1. Introduction to BASIC, by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC),
> 1978. 2. BASIC, by M. Boillot and W. Horn, 1976
>
> In preparing to go through the books, I wanted to find an environment
> that would allow me to just type in the examples, as written, and
> obtain the results, as written. So, I skimmed them looking for clues.
>
> I found the following in the DEC book on page xv:
>
> Because it is beyond the scope of this manual to describe each system
> and BASIC version, it is necessary to choose a representative pair
> for the presentation of examples. The examples in this manual are the
> result of using BASIC-PLUS on the RSTS/E system.
>
> Further down the page, was an even more helpful bit:
>
> In response to the HELLO input, RSTS/E prints a line of
> indentification such as:
>
> RSTS V06B-02 Timesharing Job 28 KB33 01-Dec-76 09:57 AM
>
>
> The Boillot mentioned Dartmouth BASIC and it had pictures of DEC
> equipment, so I was hopeful I could find a DEC BASIC-PLUS environment
> to run examples from.
>
> So I went looking for a PDP11 compatible RSTS V06B-02 Timesharing
> environment. Well, RSTS V06B-02 Timesharing doesn't appear to exist
> in accessible places on the internet. However, RSTS V06C-03, does. I
> downloaded the preconfigured RK disk image, fired up SIMH, and
> started a session:
>
> pdp11
>
> PDP-11 simulator V4.0-0 Beta git commit id: 0a00d806
> sim> attach rk1 rk2.dsk
> sim> b rk1
> Device DP23: does not interrupt - device disabled.
> Device DP26: does not interrupt - device disabled.
> Device DP27: does not interrupt - device disabled.
> Device DP30: does not interrupt - device disabled.
> Device DP31: does not interrupt - device disabled.
>
>
> RSTS V06C-03 Vixen (DK1)
>
> Option: START
> JOB MAX or SWAP MAX changes? N
> Table suboption? EXIT
> DD-MMM-YY? 10-MAR-88
> 12:03 AM? 12:00PM
> Command File Name?
>
> HELLO 11/70
> Password: PDP (won't echo)
>
> Fix a few annoyances in RSTS:
> RUN $TTYSET
> TTYSET V06C-03 RSTS V06C-03 Vixen
> Terminal characteristics program
> ? LC INPUT
> ? lc output
> ? scope
> ? exit
>
> Ready
>
> 5 REM THE OBLIGATORY CONFIRMATION THAT THE WORLD IS OK
> 10 PRINT "HELLO, WORLD."
>
> RUN
> NONAME 12:18 AM 10-Mar-88
> HELLO, WORLD.
>
> Ready
>
> Next, I found and downloaded
> DEC-11-ORBPB-A-D_BASIC-PLUS_LangMan_Jul75 and learned a bit about
> RSTS's dialog of BASCIC.
>
> I tried some code from different sections of Boillot and they all
> worked as written. I tried a few from the DEC book and the manual and
> decided the environment was sufficient for learning BASIC. I then
> worked through both books and the manual. It's amazing how well
> written these books from a nearly forgotten era are compared to
> today's.
>
> Once I got the hang of the language, I decided to go after a bigger
> fish
> - a 'real' program, a game, of course. The game I chose was Quest, by
> Roger Chaffee, originally published in Byte magazine in July of 1979.
> I had heard of Quest through another BASIC game I had played
> extensively back in the day, called Treasure, by James L. Dean. Dean
> wrote Treasure in 1980 and he credited Quest as inspiration for his
> game.
>
> I downloaded archive.org's copy of the original article and printed
> out the source code. I spent a day typing it in line by line and
> another fixing my typos and misinterpretations (try reading a scan of
> a 40 year old magazine page and see if you do any better). But,
> eventually, I was able to fire it up:
>
> QUEST 01:13 AM 10-Mar-88
> QUEST
>
> YOU WERE WALKING THROUGH THE
> WOODS, AND YOU CAME ACROSS THE ENTRANCE
> OF A CAVE, COVERED WITH BRUSH.
>
> PEOPLE SAY THAT MANY YEARS AGO A
> PIRATE HID HIS TREASURE IN THESE
> WOODS, BUT NO ONE HAS EVER FOUND IT.
> IT MAY STILL BE HERE, FOR ALL I KNOW.
>
> WHEN YOU ANSWER A QUESTION, I LOOK AT
> ONLY THE FIRST LETTER, ALTHOUGH YOU CAN
> TYPE THE WHOLE WORD IF YOU WANT.
>
> TYPE N,S,E,W,U, OR D FOR NORTH, SOUTH,
> EAST,WEST, UP OR DOWN. TYPE P FOR SCORE
>
>
> YOU'RE OUTSIDE THE CAVE.
> GO SOUTH TO ENTER.
>
> WHICH WAY?
>
> Yeeha! Three and a half hours later, I had had found the treasure and
> was wandering around trying to find my way out. I scoured the article
> for hints and found:
>
> It is possible to get through the cave by reading the program and
> decoding the data which defines the connections. If you do that, you
> will deprive yourself of the pleasure of finally finding your way
> through. It is also possible to "help" a friend by telling him how to
> get through. I don't think the easy pleasure of knowing how to get
> through can equal the joy of discovering the way, or the satisfaction
> of having discover it, or the excitement of being on the way to
> discovering it. I also don't think that anyone who merely plays Quest
> can have as much fun as I have had in writing it, and watching other
> people use it.
>
> Well that's a bummer, don't cheat and don't get help, love the thrill
> of figuring it out? how many more hours is that gonna take?
>
> Then I found this in the same article:
> No huge green snake will confront you, and event the pirate, who
> swoops down to protect his treasure at some point, is beyond your
> control. He steals back the treasure after you have found it, and the
> problem continues: find the treasure again, and find your way out of
> the cave. To make it more interesting, various passages open and
> close according to your progress through the game.
>
> Wow! That's a bit more helpful, if cryptic. I wandered around looking
> for a way out to no avail.
>
> I began to have doubts... I wasn't sure the code that I typed in was
> actually right, maybe the reason I was unable to get out of the cave
> was because I had mistyped a critical path...
>
> I perused the code - oops! Should have heeded the author's advice.
> Sure enough my typed in code was good enough, my ancient text gaming
> skills were what were lacking. The solution is entirely encompassed
> by that little paragraph about the treasure, the pirate, and the
> passages. I have to differ with the author on one thing though, I
> really enjoyed finding the solution through both code and play.
>
> Make no mistake, Quest is not Adventure, it is much smaller and
> simpler, but it's still fun and given that it ran in less than 7k,
> it's pretty fun.
>
> Enjoy!
>
> SIMH - https://github.com/simh/simh
> RSTS/E V06C-03 - https://skn.noip.me/pdp11/rk2.dsk
> Quest Source Code -
> https://drive.google.com/open?id=1yqQE6807RibvI8Lk3yaIRoY3OHjTwhXp
> Annotated Source Code -
> https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Y7MsK7I6jkkUkPXY6nF6A9mmtc__ZEeP
> BASIC-PLUS Language Manual -
> http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/pdp11/rsts/V06/DEC-11-ORBPB-A-D_BASIC-PLUS_LangMan_Jul75.pdf
> July 1979 Byte Magazine -
> https://archive.org/details/byte-magazine-1979-07/page/n175
>
> Shorter links for those really long ones:
> Quest Source Code - https://bit.ly/2TeS2TJ
> Annotated Source Code - https://bit.ly/2SycHC4
> BASIC-PLUS Language Manual - https://bit.ly/2ESOa7X
>
> Will
>
>
>
--
73 NM6Y
Bickley Consulting West Inc.
http://bickleywest.com
"Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"
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