Marc Blank
Encyclopedia
Marc Blank is an American
game developer
and software engineer
. He is best known as part of the team that created one of the first hit text adventure computer games
, Zork
.
In high school he collaborated with Alex Citron on a simulation of a major league baseball
season called CWABL, standing alternatively for Computerized Winner Automatic Baseball League or Citroblamatic Whizamadingy Automatic Baseball League, which came to employ a pseudorandom number generator classmate Robert Goodman programmed on an electronic calculator for CWABL, which despite its name was otherwise run by manual table look-up.
Blank first encountered Don Woods and Will Crowther's Adventure
game while he was studying at MIT in the mid-1970s, where the game was played on mainframe
computers.
Blank was frustrated by the computer's tiny vocabulary; when it parsed user inputs very few words were recognized. After thinking about the problem during his undergraduate years, he started work on his own adventure game using MDL, a computer language invented at MIT. Blank and a handful of friends wrote the original version of Zork on a PDP-10
while he was attending medical school at Albert Einstein College of Medicine
in New York
.
The free-play university version of Zork first became available on the MIT-DM PDP-10 in June 1977. It was then distributed by the Digital Equipment Corporation
DECUS
program and spread to many colleges in the United States and Canada.
Blank graduated from medical school in 1979 but the call of Zork was irresistible. He and several friends spent the next year developing a specialized computer language that they could use to program text adventures like Zork on the new microcomputers.
The Apple II
's limited RAM
required them to cut half of the original version of Zork. The new Zork for the Apple and the Radio Shack
TRS-80
, had a 600-word vocabulary. They founded the new company Infocom
to publish the game and more like it.
In 1993 he teamed up with former Infocom writer Michael Berlyn
to found Blank, Berlyn and Co.. The company's name was later changed to Eidetic. They initially published productivity software for the Apple Newton
. Eidetic's Notion: The Newton List Manager became a hit and was ultimately bundled in all Newtons.
Marc returned to text adventures in 1997 when Activision producer Eddie Dombrower
asked Blank and Berlyn to create a small promotional game, Zork: The Undiscovered Underground
as promotion for the release of Activision's graphical game Zork: Grand Inquisitor.
As Newton sales faded, Eidetic changed gears to focus on PC and PlayStation
games, producing the hit Syphon Filter
in 1999. In 2000 Sony
acquired Eidetic for an undisclosed sum.
Blank left Sony in 2004, where he focused on his email client for the Palm Treo
smartphone, ChatterEmail. On February 22nd 2007, Blank announced he would no longer be "actively" working on ChatterEmail. Marc subsequently joined Palm, Inc. and worked on the design and implementation of the Palm Pre's Email application. He is currently a software engineer at Google, working on Android applications.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
game developer
Game developer
Game developer may refer to:* Video game developer, an individual or company working on video game production* Video game publisher, a company funding video game developer* Video game producer, a manager of game development team...
and software engineer
Software engineer
A software engineer is an engineer who applies the principles of software engineering to the design, development, testing, and evaluation of the software and systems that make computers or anything containing software, such as computer chips, work.- Overview :...
. He is best known as part of the team that created one of the first hit text adventure computer games
Computer Games
"Computer Games" is a single by New Zealand group, Mi-Sex released in 1979 in Australia and New Zealand and in 1981 throughout Europe. It was the single that launched the band, and was hugely popular, particularly in Australia and New Zealand...
, Zork
Zork
Zork was one of the first interactive fiction computer games and an early descendant of Colossal Cave Adventure. The first version of Zork was written in 1977–1979 on a DEC PDP-10 computer by Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling, and implemented in the MDL programming language...
.
In high school he collaborated with Alex Citron on a simulation of a major league baseball
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...
season called CWABL, standing alternatively for Computerized Winner Automatic Baseball League or Citroblamatic Whizamadingy Automatic Baseball League, which came to employ a pseudorandom number generator classmate Robert Goodman programmed on an electronic calculator for CWABL, which despite its name was otherwise run by manual table look-up.
Blank first encountered Don Woods and Will Crowther's Adventure
Colossal Cave Adventure
Colossal Cave Adventure gave its name to the computer adventure game genre . It was originally designed by Will Crowther, a programmer and caving enthusiast who based the layout on part of the Mammoth Cave system in Kentucky...
game while he was studying at MIT in the mid-1970s, where the game was played on mainframe
Mainframe computer
Mainframes are powerful computers used primarily by corporate and governmental organizations for critical applications, bulk data processing such as census, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise resource planning, and financial transaction processing.The term originally referred to the...
computers.
Blank was frustrated by the computer's tiny vocabulary; when it parsed user inputs very few words were recognized. After thinking about the problem during his undergraduate years, he started work on his own adventure game using MDL, a computer language invented at MIT. Blank and a handful of friends wrote the original version of Zork on a PDP-10
PDP-10
The PDP-10 was a mainframe computer family manufactured by Digital Equipment Corporation from the late 1960s on; the name stands for "Programmed Data Processor model 10". The first model was delivered in 1966...
while he was attending medical school at Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Albert Einstein College of Medicine is a graduate school of Yeshiva University. It is a not-for-profit, private, nonsectarian medical school located on the Jack and Pearl Resnick Campus in the Morris Park neighborhood of the borough of the Bronx of New York City...
in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
.
The free-play university version of Zork first became available on the MIT-DM PDP-10 in June 1977. It was then distributed by the Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation was a major American company in the computer industry and a leading vendor of computer systems, software and peripherals from the 1960s to the 1990s...
DECUS
DECUS
The Digital Equipment Computer Users' Society was an independent computer user group related to Digital Equipment Corporation.The Connect User Group Community, formed from the consolidation in May, 2008 of DECUS, Encompass, HP-Interex, and ITUG is Hewlett-Packard’s largest user community...
program and spread to many colleges in the United States and Canada.
Blank graduated from medical school in 1979 but the call of Zork was irresistible. He and several friends spent the next year developing a specialized computer language that they could use to program text adventures like Zork on the new microcomputers.
The Apple II
Apple II
The Apple II is an 8-bit home computer, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products, designed primarily by Steve Wozniak, manufactured by Apple Computer and introduced in 1977...
's limited RAM
Ram
-Animals:*Ram, an uncastrated male sheep*Ram cichlid, a species of freshwater fish endemic to Colombia and Venezuela-Military:*Battering ram*Ramming, a military tactic in which one vehicle runs into another...
required them to cut half of the original version of Zork. The new Zork for the Apple and the Radio Shack
Radio shack
Radio shack is a slang term for a room or structure for housing radio equipment.-History:In the early days of radio, equipment was experimental and home-built. The first radio transmitters used a noisy spark to generate radio waves and were often housed in a garage or shed. When radio was first...
TRS-80
TRS-80
TRS-80 was Tandy Corporation's desktop microcomputer model line, sold through Tandy's Radio Shack stores in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The first units, ordered unseen, were delivered in November 1977, and rolled out to the stores the third week of December. The line won popularity with...
, had a 600-word vocabulary. They founded the new company Infocom
Infocom
Infocom was a software company, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that produced numerous works of interactive fiction. They also produced one notable business application, a relational database called Cornerstone....
to publish the game and more like it.
In 1993 he teamed up with former Infocom writer Michael Berlyn
Michael Berlyn
Michael Berlyn is an American computer game designer and writer. He is best known as an Implementor at Infocom, part of the text adventure game design team....
to found Blank, Berlyn and Co.. The company's name was later changed to Eidetic. They initially published productivity software for the Apple Newton
Apple Newton
The MessagePad was the first series of personal digital assistant devices developed by Apple for the Newton platform in 1993. Some electronic engineering and the manufacture of Apple's MessagePad devices was done in Japan by the Sharp Corporation...
. Eidetic's Notion: The Newton List Manager became a hit and was ultimately bundled in all Newtons.
Marc returned to text adventures in 1997 when Activision producer Eddie Dombrower
Eddie Dombrower
Eddie Dombrower is an American computer game and video game designer, programmer and producer. He is best known as the co-creator of the seminal baseball games Earl Weaver Baseball and Intellivision World Series Baseball...
asked Blank and Berlyn to create a small promotional game, Zork: The Undiscovered Underground
Zork: The Undiscovered Underground
Zork: The Undiscovered Underground is an interactive fiction computer game written by former Infocom Implementors Marc Blank and Michael Berlyn and implemented by G. Kevin Wilson using the Inform language. The game was released by Activision on August 28, 1997 for free to coincide with the release...
as promotion for the release of Activision's graphical game Zork: Grand Inquisitor.
As Newton sales faded, Eidetic changed gears to focus on PC and PlayStation
PlayStation
The is a 32-bit fifth-generation video game console first released by Sony Computer Entertainment in Japan on December 3, .The PlayStation was the first of the PlayStation series of consoles and handheld game devices. The PlayStation 2 was the console's successor in 2000...
games, producing the hit Syphon Filter
Syphon Filter
Syphon Filter is a stealth-based third-person shooter video game for the PlayStation released in 1999. It is the first game in the Syphon Filter series. It was re-released on December 4, 2006, on the PlayStation Network for use on the PSP...
in 1999. In 2000 Sony
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
acquired Eidetic for an undisclosed sum.
Blank left Sony in 2004, where he focused on his email client for the Palm Treo
Treo
The Palm Treo is a line of smartphones originally developed by Handspring, which was bought by Palm, Inc. They are now manufactured and maintained by Palm, Inc. Treos have a number of integrated features such as the ability to check the calendar while talking on the phone, dial directly from a...
smartphone, ChatterEmail. On February 22nd 2007, Blank announced he would no longer be "actively" working on ChatterEmail. Marc subsequently joined Palm, Inc. and worked on the design and implementation of the Palm Pre's Email application. He is currently a software engineer at Google, working on Android applications.