Tim Anderson (programmer): Difference between revisions

Revision as of 19:51, 28 June 2023

Revision as of 21:18, 28 June 2023

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==Career==

While attending [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology|MIT]], Anderson got his start in game development by developing the game ''Trivia'' (1976) alongside future collaborator [[Marc Blank]] for the [[Digital Equipment Corporation|DEC]] [[PDP-10]], the school's mainframe, playable over [[ARPANET]].<ref name=zorkhist>{{Cite web |last1=Anderson |first1=Tim |last2=Galley |first2=Stu |title=The History of Zork |url=http://www.csd.uwo.ca/Infocom/Articles/NZT/zorkhist.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090116035446/http://www.csd.uwo.ca/Infocom/Articles/NZT/zorkhist.html |access-date=June 27, 2023|archive-date=January 16, 2009 }}</ref> ''Trivia'' proved itself popular with the limited databaseuserbase of ARPANET, leading Anderson and Blank, as well as [[Bruce Daniels]] and [[Dave Lebling]] to collaborate on a new game.<ref name=zorkhist/> All four were members of the Dynamic Modeling Group at the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science, with all but Blank working by day writing software for [[DARPA]], which afforded them access to MIT's mainframe, even after they had graduated.<ref name=enduring/> The team had spent a considerable amount of time working on solving the game ''[[Colossal Cave Adventure]]'', mostly referred to at that time as simply ''Adventure''.<ref name=zorkhist/><ref name=down/> The team enjoyed ''Adventure'', but found themselves frustrated with the limited interface of the game, specifically its two-word command structure.<ref name=enduring/> Bolstered by their earlier experience writing games for the PDP-10, the team set out to create what would eventually become ''Zork''. Originally developed from 1977 to 1979 in the [[MDL programming language]] for the PDP-10, ''Zork'' would prove immensely popular on ARPANET.<ref name=enduring/><ref>{{Cite web |last=Lammle |first=Rob |date=June 15, 2014 |title=A Brief History of Zork |url=https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/29885/eaten-grue-brief-history-zork}}</ref> After the success of ''Zork'' on it's limited platform, Anderson and the other members of the team founded [[Infocom]], initially with no actual business plans, but settling on [[porting]] ''Zork'' to home computers.<ref name=zorkhist/><ref name=down>{{cite journal |last1=Briceno |first1=Hector |last2=Chao |first2=Wesley |last3=Glenn |first3=Andrew |last4=Hu |first4=Stanley |last5=Krishnamurthy |first5=Ashwin |last6=Tsuchida |first6=Bruce |title=Down From the Top of Its Game: The Story of Infocom, Inc. |date=December 15, 2000}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Nooney |first=Laine |date=Fall 2017 |title=Let's Begin Again |journal=American Journal of Play |volume=10}}</ref>

The home computer ports of ''Zork'' would prove immensely successful, and Infocom grew rapidly, focusing on producing new text adventures, as well as branching out into business software.<ref name=down/> Anderson would take on the title of "senior scientist, special-projects programmer" within the company, mostly assisting with development of new games.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Rouse |first1=Richard |title=Game Design: Theory and Practice |date=2004 |isbn=9781556229121 |page=180 |edition=2}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Ivory |first1=James |title=Virtual Lives |date=2012 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=9781598845860 |page=124}}</ref> The company's expansion into business software ultimately caused them to de-emphasize game production, which lead to their eventual demise in 1989.<ref name=down/><ref>{{cite web |title=Stick to What You Know: Infocom and the Perils of Expansion |url=https://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/computer-games/16/196 |website=The Computer History Museum}}</ref>