Talk:Wander (1974 video game)

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The name of this article, etc.[edit]

I stumbled across this article today, and I have an issue with the article name and some topical info.

By way of background, in the '70s and '80s I was the "computer guy" in an engineering department in what was then the Communications Division of Motorola. I recall the corporate computer facilities as being two IBM mainframes, one running IMS and the other TSO, and a Xerox Sigma-IX running CP-V. Our department mostly used the Sigma-IX and, wearing my "computer guy" hat, I wrote and maintained programs on it in Basic and Fortran IV to support the department. I ran across a text-only game called Adventure somewhere with source code in Fortran, and put it up in our departmental account on the Sigma. I never ran across Wander, but it and Colossal Cave Adventure, mentioned in this article, seem to have been forerunners of the Adventure implementation I put up.

The Adventure game I put up was text-only -- meant to be played on line-by-line hardcopy terminals. Video terminals were few and far between back then -- at least in Motorola's Comm Systems engineering departments. The vast majority of video terminals which were around were text-only with minimal and seldom-used facility for cursor positioning (those facilities were used to implement some games, though. I fondly remember Lunar lander). From what I've seen, Wander was likewise text-only line by line. The "(1974 video game)" portion of the name of this article looks factually incorrect, and probably ought to be changed to "(computer game)" or something similar.

Also, here, I've slightly clarified the assertion that Wander was coded in Basic to say "originally coded". This is supported by the source cited. Another source which might be of interest is https://github.com/shmup/wander. The third release of Wander, coded in C with unix-oriented build files, can be found there. Finally, there's a bit of background information here which might be useful in this article.

Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 04:16, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Your critique of the article title in terms of a technical definition of the term "video game" is certainly 100% valid. Most definitions of the term "video game" in active use today, however, do not stick to a strictly technical definition relating to a video signal or a CRT display and instead attempt to encompass the entire medium of interactive entertainment. A good discussion of how to define the term can be found here.