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From: grw@fortune.UUCP (Glenn Wichman)
Newsgroups: net.games.rogue
Subject: Re: Rogue History: Information Desired
Message-ID: <2980@fortune.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 6-Apr-84 17:48:26 EST
Article-I.D.: fortune.2980
Posted: Fri Apr  6 17:48:26 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 8-Apr-84 01:15:55 EST
References: <1599@stolaf.UUCP>
Organization: Fortune Systems, Redwood City, CA
Lines: 39


    1.  When was the first Rogue version made and where?  Who did it?

	The first version of Rogue was written in the fall of 1980 in
	an apartment in Santa Cruz colloquially known as "Camelot".
	The original idea for the game came suddenly and simultaneously
	to the two roommates, Michael C. Toy and Glenn R. Wichman.  The
	name "rogue" was given the game by Glenn.  It was written in C
	under UNIX on a PDP 11/70 at U.C. Santa Cruz.  It was one of the
	earliest programs to use the "curses" terminal-independent cursor
	library developed by Ken Arnold.  Later, (winter of '81) development
	of the game moved from Santa Cruz to Berkeley, where Ken Arnold
	got involved.

    2.  Did it catch on immediately or was it another Lord of the Rings?

	It caught on immediately, like wildfire.  It had already become
	the most popular game at UC Santa Cruz even before there were
	monsters in the game, and all you could do was explore levels.

    3.  When did the differing versions begin proliferating and what are
	they?

	I can't give a complete answer to this.  The current official
	version that is most widespread is 5.3.  A group in San Diego
	hacked up a version called ad_d, and a group in the midwest
	came up with the "Super-rogue" enhancements.  There are also
	tons of local mutants.

    4.  What can be expected in the near future?

	Rogue is now available for the IBM-PC.  Most of our development
	energies are going towards the home computer market now.  I
	won't say anything more except exciting things can be expected
	in the future from the rogue people (Michael Toy, Jon Lane, Ken
	Arnold, Glenn Wichman).


					-Glenn R. Wichman