Microsoft has had a hand in all sorts of different products even in its early days. We’ve already discussed how it sold hardware add-in cards for the Apple PC in the early 1980s. However, even before that, Microsoft released a PC game that is now mostly forgotten. It is called Microsoft Adventureand this is the first game the company has brought us. Microsoft Flight Simulator, Age of Empires, Hello, Gears of Warand many game franchises that are more popular today.
Microsoft Adventure There was actually an adaptation of another game that was developed and released for free in the mid-1970s for those large mainframe computers found in university and research centers. Great cave adventure (sometimes referred to simply as adventure) and was first written and published by William Crowther in 1975. In an interview for the book, Genesis II: Creativity and Entertainment with ComputersCrowther says he was inspired to create the game by his own exploration of the caves, along with the original game. Dungeons and Dragons Tabletop RPG.
Great cave adventure is a text-only game, where the player character explores a cave system. He searches for treasure while also dealing with attacking dwarves and trying not to die. He plays the game by typing one or two word commands.
In 1977, another programmer, Don Woods, accessed the game’s source code and enhanced the game with even more fantasy elements and a points system. adventure One of the first true adventure-based PC games, and many games have been released since Strong Next, he owes the debt.
Microsoft Adventure It was an adaptation. adventure From programmer Gordon Layton, who created it through his company Softwin Associates. TRS-80.org says that when other programmers tried to adapt the original. adventure For small personal computers, Letwin was the first to bring the entire game to the PC. Unfortunately, when Microsoft Adventure Released by Microsoft in 1979, it did not credit Crowther or Woods for their work.
While the game was first released for the TRS-80 Model 1 PC, it required 32K of memory, and a floppy drive, which many PCs did not have. The game was also copy-protected, one of the first examples of a PC game to receive this type of protection. It also allowed players to save their progress up to twice per disc. It cost $29.95 to buy, which also made it quite expensive for its day, and Microsoft sold hint documents for $1 each to give some help to gamers who might be stuck.
Microsoft Adventure Also released in 1979 for the Apple II. In 1981, the game received another edition, this time for the first IBM PC release. It was the first commercial game made for IBM’s first personal computer system. The IBM PC DOS operating system also included a game for free, called the Racing Game. DONKEY.BASwhich was actually co-written by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates (maybe we’ll write a feature on this game someday).
If you are interested, you can play the IBM version of the game. On the PCjs.org website. While it’s unlikely that Microsoft will ever do a full graphical reboot of the game (especially since it’s an adaptation of the two men’s previous work) it’s a reminder of the early days of PC gaming and Microsoft’s first software efforts. I’m still curious to know. Work on MS-DOS or Windows.
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