Re: abbreviated commands (was Re:your mail) -- MIDRANGE-L

Yep, I remember those to...

Let's, uh, Zork and Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy. I was ticked too and keyed
something similar to what you did (different game(s) same level of frustration 
<BG>)
and the reply came back something like, "you'd like that wouldn't you". At the 
point
I spent the next 5 minutes keying in every rude thing I could think of just to 
see
what would come back. It was AMAZING what they had programmed for  ! It was
hilarious. Unfortunately that I could be a bit distracting as you progressed 
through
the games and keep "checking" for stuff like that <BG>...

Chuck

keech@VNET.IBM.COM wrote:

> Eric said:
> >
> >This reminds me about an incident at a 36 shop years back. The system 
>operator
> >typed "C P <enter>" right after completing dayend for the banks.
> >
> >For those who aren't familliar with s36 shorthand, this stands for cancel 
>print.
> >Every report was scrubbed, and dayend had to be reprocessed. Loved those 
>single
> >character commands! <g>
> >
> >Eric A DeLong
> >
>
> I hope the list will forgive a slightly off-topic post regarding the
> joys (and woes) of abbreviated commands.
>
> I absolutely love computer games, and one of my first loves was the
> old Adventure-style games, which I played on my Apple II computer,
> purchased with nearly my first paycheck from IBM.
>
> For those unfamiliar with this type of game, one typed in commands
> of the form VERB OBJECT, where the OBJECT was optional, and the
> commands could be abbreviated to 3 characters.
>
> In one of the games I came upon a bear on a mountain ledge, and the
> bear absolutely refused to let me pass.  I tried giving the bear
> everything in my inventory, I tried sneaking by the bear, attacking
> the bear, but everything I tried just angered the bear, causing him
> to throw me from the ledge.
>
> Finally, after hours of frustration I typed in:
>
> SCR*W THE BEAR
>
> to which the game replied:
>
> THE BEAR IS SO STARTLED HE FALLS OFF THE LEDGE.
>
> Well, I was startled, too, enjoying a good laugh, and amazed that the
> programmers had put such a thing in a game. (The games were much tamer
> back then).
>
> A couple weeks later I finally figured out that what the game really
> wanted was:
>
> SCREAM AT THE BEAR
>
> which it would parse down to
>
> SCR BEA
>
> But, I felt my solution was slightly more elegant.
>
> Marty (working for IBM, speaking for himself)
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