Everything about William Crowther totally explained
» For the former premier of Tasmania, see William Crowther (Australian politician)William ("Willie" or "Will") Crowther (born 1936) is a
computer programmer and
caver. He is best known as the co-creator of
Colossal Cave Adventure, a seminal computer game that influenced the first decade of
game design and created a new
game genre,
text adventures.
Biography
During the early
1970s Crowther worked at
defense contractor and
Internet pioneer
Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BBN). Following his divorce from his wife
Patricia, Crowther began using his spare time to develop a simple text-based adventure game in
FORTRAN on BBN's
PDP-10. He created it as a diversion his daughters Sandy and Laura could enjoy when they came to visit. (Montfort, 2003, pp. 85–87)
In
Adventure, the player moves around an imaginary cave system by entering simple, two-word commands and reading text describing the result. Crowther used his extensive knowledge of cave exploration as a basis for the game play, and there are many similarities between the locations in the game and those in Mammoth Cave, particularly its
Bedquilt section. (Montfort, 2003, p. 88) In
1975 Crowther released the game on the early
ARPANET system, of which BBN was a prime contractor. (Montfort, 2003, p. 89)
In the Spring of
1976, he was contacted by Stanford researcher
Don Woods, seeking his permission to enhance the game. Crowther agreed, and Woods developed several enhanced versions on a PDP-10 housed in the
Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (SAIL) where he worked. (Montfort, 2003, p. 89) Over the following decade the game gained in popularity, being ported to many
operating systems, including personal-computer platform
CP/M.
The basic game structure invented by Crowther (and based in part on the example of the
ELIZA text
parser) was carried forward by the designers of later adventure games.
Marc Blank and the team that created the
Zork adventures cite
Adventure as the title that inspired them to create their game. They later founded
Infocom and published a series of popular text adventures.
The location of the game in
Colossal Cave wasn't a coincidence. Will and his first wife
Pat Crowther were active and dedicated cavers in the
1960s and early
1970s—both were part of many expeditions to connect the
Mammoth and
Flint Ridge cave systems. Pat played a key role in the September 9, 1972 expedition that finally made the connection. (Brucker, 1976, p. 299)
Will has also played an important role in the development of rock climbing in the
Shawangunks in
New York State. He began climbing there in the 1950s and continues to climb today. He made the first ascent of several classic routes including Arrow, Hawk, Moonlight, and Senté. Some of these routes sparked controversy because protection bolts were placed on rappel; a new tactic that Crowther and several others began to use at the time. The community reaction to this technique was an important part of the evolution of climbing ethics in the Shawangunks and beyond.
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