Playing Games on a 60s Computer

Can you believe this names rings a bell with me! I was at Edinburgh for a year in the early 80s.

Thanks for the Noddy document!

PDP-15, Graphics-15, VT15 came up here, so I’ll ask: Does anyone remember a “Lunar Lander”-style game for the PDP-15? See https://twitter.com/katewillaert/status/1483212129058668548
lunar15

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Of course, there was the Lunar Lander for the DEC GT40, for which the graphical version had been originally developed. But, I guess, you already know this.

GT40_Lunar_Lander

gt40-lander-1

There had been various versions with different graphics interfaces (GT40 with VR40, GT42 and GT44 with VT11, GT62 with VS60), but I wouldn’t know of a VT15 version.

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I only know about the GT40 version, and I’m also interested in all other variations that may exist out there. I just asked specifically about a PDP-15 game because it came up on Twitter, but the more the merrier!

I guessed so. :slight_smile:
My instant reaction had been that this must have been a variation of this, but it’s not obvious from the screenshots. The GT40 version relies on the lightpen for controls, so this would have required some adaptions, which may account for the differences in the images (like what appears to be a numeric display, where the GT40 version shows a bar.) However, I’m not specifically aware of a VT15/PDP-15 version.

All other variations? I have a vivid memory of this one:

It was one of the first non-trivial programs I typed into my brand new Apple ][+, and it looked very similar to the screen shots posted here. That program was also how I was spontaneously introduced to the built-in machine language monitor, due to a typo in one of the DATA statements.

I have to be careful on this forum not to repeat myself, but I think it was the Vector Graphics forum where I mentioned this recently. We had a lunar lander on our PDP9 (which I’m fairly sure is a subset of a PDP15) but I think it was played on an oscilloscope rather than a vector terminal. It used the switches to control thrust and I don’t think there was any lateral control but I may be misremembering that, as I didn’t play it much. (We had draughts and chess on the pdp15 with the proper vector display, which were much better games. And a home made asteroids clone that was spot on)

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(Sounds interesting! I found this draughts/checkers thread of yours, but not a lunar lander one. Feel free to mention or link to other forums here.)

I remember in the early 80’s playing lunar lander on an EMI medical console someone had written in their spare time. It had a small screen, roller ball, a polaroid camera to take pictures of the screen (“print screen!”). Can’t remember the hardware involved.

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Sounds like a Direct View Storage Tube type display,from the fact it had a camera.
Ben.

I remember it had two screens - one large one in front of you, one to one side with the polaroid camera attached.

Speaking of GT40, a version of Spacewar was recently unearthed. It was mainly written by Richard C. Waters, perhaps more known for the Common Lisp pretty printer.

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For those of us who didn’t work on the PDP-8

http://homepage.divms.uiowa.edu/~jones/pdp8/refcard/74.html

Have fun with the reference guide. Lemme know if there’s any innacuracies.

I’m not exactly the most knowledgeable regarding the PDP-8. I once read the manuals (and the Small Computer Handbook, etc), but became distracted, when it came to get hands on (with a PiDP-8). That said, this looks like a compact, versatile resource! (Quite complete, even various character encodings!)

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