LambdaMOO takes a new direction (1992) • Hacker News Board

Re: LambdaMOO takes a new direction (1992)

#11

Post by stormcode » Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 3:43 AM UTC

clouddrover wrote: post #8

sedatk wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, I had no idea LambdaMOO was capable of that. I knew that MUSH/MOO like systems were rich but not to that extent. It was essentially proto-Minecraft in a sense?

LambdaMOO is a fully programmable text-based virtual reality. Here's the LambdaMOO programmer's manual: https://hayseed.net/MOO/manuals/ProgrammersManual.html Webpage: https://www.moo.mud.org/ Other resources: https://github.com/johndoe771/lambda-moo-programming And for LambdaMOO itself telnet to lambda.moo.mud.org 8888.

More resources for those interested, probably the most comprehensive and up to date site: https://lisdude.com/moo/

Re: LambdaMOO takes a new direction (1992)

#12

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 3:56 AM UTC

mherdeg wrote: post #6

Still don't think I have ever connected to LambdaMOO, although I spent some time on ifMUD which is in the same neighborhood. Reading these docs now, if I understand right, in between LTAND and LTAND2 was the Mr Bungle/Dr. Jest incident ( https://www.villagevoice.com/2005/10/18/a-rape-in-cyberspace... ), which maybe fills in some of the unspoken context around "We Are Reintroducing Wizardly Fiat" and "The wizards will…

[deleted]

Re: LambdaMOO takes a new direction (1992)

#13

Post by hinkley » Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 4:05 AM UTC

core-questions wrote: post #2

I loved LambdaMoo. It was installed on our high school network in maybe '97 and I created whole worlds in there for friends to explore, including interactive functions. Had no idea I was writing "lambdas" at the time, it was just an interesting way to build a text adventure from within itself.

I never played one, knew a couple people who worked on them.

MOO software was one of the first handful of pieces of software I ever read the source for. Heard somewhere that a MOO (LambdaMOO?) had a Slab Allocator and I wanted to see how it worked.

Re: LambdaMOO takes a new direction (1992)

#14

Post by VadimPR » Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 4:10 AM UTC

clouddrover wrote: post #8

sedatk wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, I had no idea LambdaMOO was capable of that. I knew that MUSH/MOO like systems were rich but not to that extent. It was essentially proto-Minecraft in a sense?

LambdaMOO is a fully programmable text-based virtual reality. Here's the LambdaMOO programmer's manual: https://hayseed.net/MOO/manuals/ProgrammersManual.html Webpage: https://www.moo.mud.org/ Other resources: https://github.com/johndoe771/lambda-moo-programming And for LambdaMOO itself telnet to lambda.moo.mud.org 8888.

For a telnet client, https://mudlet.org is something FOSS and crossplatform you can run (disclaimer - involved with project)

Re: LambdaMOO takes a new direction (1992)

#15

Post by core-questions » Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 5:20 AM UTC

sedatk wrote: post #4

core-questions wrote: post #2

I loved LambdaMoo. It was installed on our high school network in maybe '97 and I created whole worlds in there for friends to explore, including interactive functions. Had no idea I was writing "lambdas" at the time, it was just an interesting way to build a text adventure from within itself.

Wow, I had no idea LambdaMOO was capable of that. I knew that MUSH/MOO like systems were rich but not to that extent. It was essentially proto-Minecraft in a sense?

I guess? I logged into it and there was some basic world that must have been out of the box demo data, and it seemed like basically a REPL where you could create objects like rooms, and verbs, and a verb could move you to a different room; so like a REPL with state like a shell's pwd and environment. I would just carve off rooms, I think I made some chest-like things. You'd write tons of text for different verbs people might use.

I can't remember any of the code, at all, now though. Just remember constructing "The Ethereal Plane" with all sorts of cloud metaphors for computing back before that was cool~

Re: LambdaMOO takes a new direction (1992)

#16

Post by mikekchar » Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 6:12 AM UTC

mherdeg wrote: post #6

Still don't think I have ever connected to LambdaMOO, although I spent some time on ifMUD which is in the same neighborhood. Reading these docs now, if I understand right, in between LTAND and LTAND2 was the Mr Bungle/Dr. Jest incident ( https://www.villagevoice.com/2005/10/18/a-rape-in-cyberspace... ), which maybe fills in some of the unspoken context around "We Are Reintroducing Wizardly Fiat" and "The wizards will…

I was there pretty much right at the beginning of LambdaMOO. I left before I ever saw a troll. In fact, this is the first time I actually realised there was ever a problem. It's very sad. It was a great community. Incredibly giving and helpful. Also Pavel Curtis was a really good maintainer. He was always willing to look into reported problems and would always accept patches. If he modified them, he always did it with grace.

Re: LambdaMOO takes a new direction (1992)

#17

Post by isamuel » Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 7:38 AM UTC

I spent an enormous amount of time on "Snow Crash", a MOO that I think was similar and was popular around the same time. This was in the middle or late 90s. The world was incredibly rich---everything in it was an object that was programmable if you had the right ownership permissions. I don't remember the language it used, or if it even was a standard one, but looking back it was unbelievably robust. I was able to make a "video recorder" that could be turned on, record all the events in a given place, and replay them later to make it all seem like it was happening again; a couple then used this to record their in-world wedding, which I only learned about months later.

I have DESPERATELY searched for years for any commentary on this community slash game, with no luck. I can even remember the telnet address: sapporo.sensemedia.net. Port 8888, maybe? Ah, alas.

Re: LambdaMOO takes a new direction (1992)

#18

Post by o-__-o » Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 8:06 AM UTC

isamuel wrote: post #17

I spent an enormous amount of time on "Snow Crash", a MOO that I think was similar and was popular around the same time. This was in the middle or late 90s. The world was incredibly rich---everything in it was an object that was programmable if you had the right ownership permissions. I don't remember the language it used, or if it even was a standard one, but looking back it was unbelievably robust. I was able to ma…

Sounds very much like LambdaMOO. Back in the day there were mirror sites you could use if your ping was absurdly high its possible that sapporo host was just a mirror. Snow Crash sounds familiar, but it reminds me of an area inside LambdaMOO. That world was huge, I remember several times ending up in brand new areas that I would spend hours exploring because I never knew how to get back -- I jumped out of a helicopter once, landed on a remote island that had a HUGE underground complex. Another was a party room in the clouds... the imagination could run wild there. I also remember things that could "playback" events (like you could look into a mirror and see who used to be in that room)

Re: LambdaMOO takes a new direction (1992)

#19

Post by emmelaich » Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 8:25 AM UTC

clouddrover wrote: post #8

sedatk wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, I had no idea LambdaMOO was capable of that. I knew that MUSH/MOO like systems were rich but not to that extent. It was essentially proto-Minecraft in a sense?

LambdaMOO is a fully programmable text-based virtual reality. Here's the LambdaMOO programmer's manual: https://hayseed.net/MOO/manuals/ProgrammersManual.html Webpage: https://www.moo.mud.org/ Other resources: https://github.com/johndoe771/lambda-moo-programming And for LambdaMOO itself telnet to lambda.moo.mud.org 8888.

Or if you don't have telnet installed, you can use the `-t` option to netcat.

Re: LambdaMOO takes a new direction (1992)

#20

Post by ntoll » Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 8:53 AM UTC

LambdaMoo, BayMoo (and the now defunct ParkMoo) were all favourite haunts of mine in the mid-90s when I was at university. Perhaps I'm feeling nostalgic for those innocent pre-social-media times: I'm in the process of writing a Python "MOO" as a weekend fun project -- a sort of interactive literary world inhabited by other writers / creators / explorers.

If you're interested in this sort of thing, Richard Bartle's "Designing Virtual Worlds" is the classic to read.