@matigo you thought it was text but each letter was actually a very tiny picture. Each one was slightly different and the layout wasn’t hard coded but instead dynamically constructed client-side using a bespoke AI library to construct the optimal spacing.
// @JeremyCherfas
@variablepulserate looks like it’s available emulated in browser:
https://archive.org/details/ClassicTextAdventureMasterpiecesofInfocomMacintosh
// @matigo @hazardwarning
@matigo I think you paid less than I did for that ‘free’ OS. Floppies weren’t cheap at that quantity! :)
@matigo took me about two weeks to download it to a box of 3.5 floppies. I’d log in to the shell account and ftp disc images till my quota was full, then start zmodem to download them to my local machine and let it run overnight.
@matigo we were lucky to have started learning computers when they were simpler machines than now. It’s easier to learn when there is less to learn overall and then you just need to keep up as things get added. These days kids have so much more to learn from the start.
And while we’re sharing: my first was a Vic-20 around ‘82 or so (learned Basic on this, remember typing in programs printed in the back of a magazine (Byte?)), then a C-64 sometime around ‘88ish (Floppy discs!, BBSing via 300baud) followed by a 286 in ‘92 (1200 baud! Internet shell account! Slackware 1.0!) and typical upgrades every two or three years since. Switched to Mac somewhere around ‘05 or so.
@variablepulserate leather Goddesses of Phobos was an old Infocom text adventure game. I barely remember playing it and from what I can (hazily) recall it was kinda funny but not overly challenging.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LeatherGoddessesof_Phobos
// @matigo @hazardwarning
@matigo the thought occurs every now and then. My skills really aren’t all that good, though.
@matigo well, they do support Python3, so the libraries are probably there. There is a global max runtime of only five minutes, though, so you’d have to upload it pre-trained. I’m not sure if there is a size limit on the file you upload, but it has to be plain text. Considering the hard problem I just did was playing hangman, an expert system may have been a solid approach.
@matigo it’s a programming challenge happening this weekend. Fun puzzles you need to write programs to solve. If one’s work is all programming then this could be a bit too similar for enjoyment. My job rarely involves any programming so I get to enjoy it as a hobby still.
Over ten hours banging my head against a hard mode puzzle makes it super satisfying when I finally figure it out.