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Microsoft makes Zork open-source

opensource.microsoft.com

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Re: Microsoft makes Zork open-source

#221

Post by nebula8804 »

pavlov wrote: post #64
nebula8804 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If AGI ever comes close to fruition I can't wait to just dump this code into some AI, tell it to fix all security bugs and make it work on M Series processors. Would finally achieve a computing environment that would be perfect for me. Until then, I will continue to dream.

Why not use AI to make ReactOS better? Is there something in original Windows XP that ReactOS doesn’t want to implement?

I suspect this question would be asked different ways depending on the historical context of the user. I grew up using Windows XP, dabbled in using ReactOS maybe once or twice, saw that didn't meet my needs when I tried it, and then proceeded to not really spend anymore time thinking about it.

Re: Microsoft makes Zork open-source

#222

Post by larsbrinkhoff »

drob518 wrote: post #70
agiacalone wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MDL, actually, which was derived from LISP. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDL_(programming_language)

I’m curious why they chose MDL rather than Lisp for it. Sure, it would have been ancient MACLISP or whatever, but why not leverage what was already in wide use at MIT at the time?

Because Zork was written on the MIT Dynamic Modeling PDP-10. MDL was an important part of the software ecosystem on that computer, but Lisp wasn't. On the other MIT PDP-10 computers, Maclisp reined.

Re: Microsoft makes Zork open-source

#223

Post by stavros »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #111
reticulated wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My goodness, I could have written this word-for-word. Similar age, same Apple II BASIC and 6502 upbringing (roll sleeves and call -151 ) and also wrote to Infocom. We were in the UK so even more surprised to get a reply similar to yours several weeks later. Sadly my letter is also lost to various house moves. Or eaten by a grue.

Me too, except my letter was to Sierra On-Line and my experience was on TRS-80 6809. Really classy reply asking me to write back when I finished school.

Recruiter pipelines back then were long, huh?

Re: Microsoft makes Zork open-source

#224

Post by nebula8804 »

Night_Thastus wrote: post #62
nebula8804 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If AGI ever comes close to fruition I can't wait to just dump this code into some AI, tell it to fix all security bugs and make it work on M Series processors. Would finally achieve a computing environment that would be perfect for me. Until then, I will continue to dream.

If we ever get to the point of having a tool that could do something that complex, we're well past the point of using human-written operating systems or using M-series processors. Which is to say, very, very, very far away.

Hmm I seem to recall Karpathy talk about the next era of software being like this: Essentially everything is made on demand exactly the way the user expects or something like that. it would definitely be a paradigm shift that requires rethinking how we approach software.

What do we really need? If you look at what Ai can solve today, smaller problems seem to be solved really well by AI. So just an AI with a large enough context, adequate speed to made the changes in near real time and a reasoning ability that can better handle problems vs whats available today might be adequate to realize this relality in some way.

Re: Microsoft makes Zork open-source

#225

Post by planckscnst »

Whenever I use LLM-generated content, I get another LLM and pre-bias it by asking if it's familiar with common complaints about LLM generated content. And then I ask it to review the content and ask for it to identify those patterns in the content and rewrite it to avoid those. And only after that do I bother to give it a first read. That clearly didn't happen here. Current LLM models can produce much better content than this if you do that.

Re: Microsoft makes Zork open-source

#226

Post by johngossman »

NecroTechno wrote: post #182

it's pretty grim that this announcement, which is in part celebrating the legacy of an incredible artistic endeavor, was written by an LLM. reading this feels like my head is continuously being bashed in by a brick.

I've been reading Hanselman's blog for ages. That's just the way he writes. Compare this post from 2013 (clearly pre-LLM)

https://www.hanselman.com/blog/ipad-surface-ultrabook-are-we...

Re: Microsoft makes Zork open-source

#227

Post by pjmlp »

randall wrote: post #63
seritools wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Infocom was bought by Activision, ActivisionBlizzard was bought by Microsoft.

whoa til microsoft owns blizzard.

Microsoft owns lots of studios, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Microsoft_Gaming_studi...

Hence why when people think it is only a XBox console and nothing else, couldn't be more wrong.

Re: Microsoft makes Zork open-source

#228

Post by vrighter »

WorldMaker wrote: post #160
drob518 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice. Yep, we wrote our own adventure games in BASIC as well. There were a couple problems with that, however. First we weren’t able to come up with a sophisticated parser like Infocom had. We ended up with basic “verb object” parsers, ala Scott Adams adventures. Second, we didn’t have many rooms as it was difficult to fit it all into memory and we didn’t have the sophisticated incremental loading that Infocom did wi…

Writing a terrible "verb object" parser in BASIC was certainly a rite of passage for many of us. I recall making more than one. I also recall my best one having rudimentary "verb object preposition subject" support, but that being about my limit at the time in BASIC. But also I had access to TADS and early Inform (at home) and still wound up building a couple in BASIC (because school computer labs would have that ava…

I did that in brainfuck once. I am a masochist apparently

Re: Microsoft makes Zork open-source

#230

Post by ChicagoDave »

throwaway81523 wrote: post #177

How did Microsoft get to own it in the first place? And the original MDL version of Zork has been around forever. I wonder if Microsoft has any of the other Infocom games and might release them too. And, "A game that changed how we think about play"? Um, that was ADVENTURE. Zork was arguably better, but it was in the same vein, and later.

I was in a small room with two paper terminals in 1979 where I discovered ADVENT and DUNGEO at the same time. Maybe there was a distinct separation for a few college students, but for most people they “came out” at the same time.
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