William Crowther
Encyclopedia
William Crowther (born 1936) is a computer programmer and caver
. He is best known as the co-creator of Colossal Cave Adventure
, a seminal computer game that influenced the first decade of game design and created a new game genre, text adventures.
and internet
pioneer Bolt Beranek and Newman (BBN), where he was part of the original
small ARPAnet development team. His implementation of a distributed distance
vector routing system for the ARPAnet was an important step in the evolution of
the Internet.
Crowther met and married Pat Crowther while at MIT.
on BBN's PDP-10
. He created it as a diversion his daughters Sandy and Laura could enjoy when they came to visit.
Crowther wrote:
In Colossal Cave
, or more simply called Adventure
, 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 game play, and there are many similarities between the locations in the game and those in Mammoth Cave, particularly its Bedquilt section. In 1975 Crowther released the game on the early ARPAnet
system, of which BBN was a prime contractor.
In the spring of 1976, he was contacted by Stanford researcher Don Woods, seeking his permission to enhance the game. Crowther agreed, and Woods developed several enhanced versions on a PDP-10 housed in the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (SAIL) where he worked. (Montfort, 2003, p. 89) Over the following decade the game gained in popularity, being ported to many operating systems, including personal-computer platform CP/M
.
The basic game structure invented by Crowther (and based in part on the example of the ELIZA
text parser) was carried forward by the designers of later adventure games. Marc Blank
and the team that created the Zork
adventures cite Adventure as the title that inspired them to create their game. They later founded Infocom
and published a series of popular text adventures.
As a member of the MIT Outing Club during the late 1950s and early 1960s, Will has also played an important role in the development of rock climbing in the Shawangunks in New York State. (Waterman, 1993, p. 146) He began climbing there in the 1950s and continues to climb today. 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.
Will continues to lead an active life. On June 15, 2008, at the age of 73, Will became a certified SCUBA diver in Lake George
, NY.
Caving
Caving—also occasionally known as spelunking in the United States and potholing in the United Kingdom—is the recreational pastime of exploring wild cave systems...
. He is best known as the co-creator of Colossal Cave 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...
, a seminal computer game that influenced the first decade of game design and created a new game genre, text adventures.
Biography
During the early 1970s Crowther worked at defense contractorDefense contractor
A defense contractor is a business organization or individual that provides products or services to a military department of a government. Products typically include military aircraft, ships, vehicles, weaponry, and electronic systems...
and internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
pioneer Bolt Beranek and Newman (BBN), where he was part of the original
small ARPAnet development team. His implementation of a distributed distance
vector routing system for the ARPAnet was an important step in the evolution of
the Internet.
Crowther met and married Pat Crowther while at MIT.
Adventure
Following his divorce from his wife, Crowther used his spare time to develop a simple text-based adventure game in FortranFortran
Fortran is a general-purpose, procedural, imperative programming language that is especially suited to numeric computation and scientific computing...
on BBN's 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...
. He created it as a diversion his daughters Sandy and Laura could enjoy when they came to visit.
Crowther wrote:
"I had been involved in a non-computer role-playing game called Dungeons and
Dragons at the time, and also I had been actively exploring in caves - Mammoth
Cave 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 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."
In Colossal Cave
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...
, or more simply called 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...
, 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 game play, and there are many similarities between the locations in the game and those in Mammoth Cave, particularly its Bedquilt section. In 1975 Crowther released the game on the early ARPAnet
ARPANET
The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network , was the world's first operational packet switching network and the core network of a set that came to compose the global Internet...
system, of which BBN was a prime contractor.
In the spring of 1976, he was contacted by Stanford researcher Don Woods, seeking his permission to enhance the game. Crowther agreed, and Woods developed several enhanced versions on a PDP-10 housed in the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (SAIL) where he worked. (Montfort, 2003, p. 89) Over the following decade the game gained in popularity, being ported to many operating systems, including personal-computer platform CP/M
CP/M
CP/M was a mass-market operating system created for Intel 8080/85 based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc...
.
The basic game structure invented by Crowther (and based in part on the example of the ELIZA
ELIZA
ELIZA is a computer program and an early example of primitive natural language processing. ELIZA operated by processing users' responses to scripts, the most famous of which was DOCTOR, a simulation of a Rogerian psychotherapist. Using almost no information about human thought or emotion, DOCTOR...
text parser) was carried forward by the designers of later adventure games. Marc Blank
Marc Blank
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....
and the team that created the 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...
adventures cite Adventure as the title that inspired them to create their game. They later founded 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....
and published a series of popular text adventures.
Caving
The location of the game in Colossal Cave was not a coincidence. Will and his first wife Pat Crowther were active and dedicated cavers in the 1960s and early 1970s—both were part of many expeditions to connect the Mammoth and Flint Ridge cave systems. Pat played a key role in the September 9, 1972 expedition that finally made the connection.As a member of the MIT Outing Club during the late 1950s and early 1960s, Will has also played an important role in the development of rock climbing in the Shawangunks in New York State. (Waterman, 1993, p. 146) He began climbing there in the 1950s and continues to climb today. 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.
Will continues to lead an active life. On June 15, 2008, at the age of 73, Will became a certified SCUBA diver in Lake George
Lake George (New York)
Lake George, nicknamed the Queen of American Lakes, is a long, narrow oligotrophic lake draining northwards into Lake Champlain and the St. Lawrence River Drainage basin located at the southeast base of the Adirondack Mountains in northern New York, U.S.A.. It lies within the upper region of the...
, NY.