> On Aug 28, 2023, at 4:55 PM, Will Cooke via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org>
> wrote:
>
>
>
>> On 08/28/2023 3:48 PM CDT Paul Koning via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Lander, in FOCAL? The only one I know is for the GT40, in assembler.
>>
>> paul
>
> Apparently the original version was in FOCAL.
> https://www.cs.brandeis.edu/~storer/LunarLander/LunarLander.html
>
> Will
Interesting. And amazingly short.
I flipped through some of those articles. There's a version from around those
early times not mentioned, for the CDC 6000 mainframe computer. It used the
console display, dual green text displays that could also do graphics
(clumsily, because the API was a dot drawing one, not line vectors).
What's unusual about that one is that it's a pilot's point of view display --
it shows you the lander's instruments and a view out the windows, rather than
an outside observer view as the GT40 version does. I played it a few times, it
was hard -- I never managed to land it. One of the system staff (at University
of Illinois PLATO project) was rumored to have a fast way to land: flip upside
down, blast rockets, flip right side up, blast some more for a soft landing.
paul
