HAUNT
Encyclopedia
HAUNT was a straightforward but engagingly irreverent text-based
mainframe computer game. It was created in OPS4
language in 1979 by John E. Laird
.
You explore a haunted house
and encounter clues (flight speed of an African swallow), wacky creatures (rampaging moose), and random elements (the bus) as you try to escape.
The game ran on DEC-10 & DEC-20 mainframes running TOPS-10
or TOPS-20
. Copies exist somewhere in Carnegie Mellon University's archive; although the author considered rewriting it in an updated language, that did not happen.
Laird is now a professor at University of Michigan
. As he describes: "It violated most, if not all, of the design guidelines for good interactive fiction in that you could get killed much too easily, the puzzles were way too obscure (many based on Saturday morning cartoons from my youth), but it had a certain charm. "
Text-based
Usually used in reference to a computer application, a text-based application is one whose primary input and output are based on text rather than graphics or sound. This does not mean that text-based applications do not have graphics or sound, just that the graphics or sound are secondary to the...
mainframe computer game. It was created in OPS4
OPS5
OPS5 is a rule-based or production system computer language, notable as the first such language to be used in a successful expert system, the R1/XCON system used to configure VAX computers....
language in 1979 by John E. Laird
John E. Laird
John E. Laird is a computer scientist who, with Paul Rosenbloom and Allen Newell, created the Soar cognitive architecture at Carnegie Mellon University. Laird is a Professor of the Computer Science and Engineering Division of the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department of the...
.
You explore a haunted house
Haunted house
A haunted house is a house or other building often perceived as being inhabited by disembodied spirits of the deceased who may have been former residents or were familiar with the property...
and encounter clues (flight speed of an African swallow), wacky creatures (rampaging moose), and random elements (the bus) as you try to escape.
The game ran on DEC-10 & DEC-20 mainframes running TOPS-10
TOPS-10
The TOPS-10 System was a computer operating system from Digital Equipment Corporation for the PDP-10 mainframe computer launched in 1967...
or TOPS-20
TOPS-20
The TOPS-20 operating system by Digital Equipment Corporation was the second proprietary OS for the PDP-10 mainframe computer. TOPS-20 began in 1969 as the TENEX operating system of Bolt, Beranek and Newman...
. Copies exist somewhere in Carnegie Mellon University's archive; although the author considered rewriting it in an updated language, that did not happen.
Laird is now a professor at University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
. As he describes: "It violated most, if not all, of the design guidelines for good interactive fiction in that you could get killed much too easily, the puzzles were way too obscure (many based on Saturday morning cartoons from my youth), but it had a certain charm. "