Looking for a game that was on the Digital DEC computer OS

[AB Positive]

It was a simple game, described to me as similar to the Mario Paint flyswatter game except you use the mouse pointer to kill cockroaches. She played it on a Digital DEC (unix) style computer from a while while back. Anyone have a clue on this game?

-AG

[Jibbajaba]

When I read the title of this thread I thought you were talking about spacewar. :D

Chris

[Ed Oscuro]

That'd be PDP-9, DEC Alpha systems are more sophisticated (well, they're smaller, anyhow) and came about a decade later, I believe...still terribly obsolete :P

[AB Positive]

That'd be PDP-9, DEC Alpha systems are more sophisticated (well, they're smaller, anyhow) and came about a decade later, I believe...still terribly obsolete :P

Indeed, and this may be an impossible task to ask here as my friend's father (my reason for making this thread) was an engineer at Digital at the time. There's a chance that he or one of his buddies made the game themselves and therefore there may be no record of it. However she remembers playing it on his home DEC setup.

Anyone got a clue here?

-AG

[Ed Oscuro]

Hell, get them to write some stuff down :)

Alphas aren't big iron, really, but I saw one on eBay once (a smaller, more modern PC-form-ish case) and thought "damn that'd be cool to own." Even if I couldn't do jack with it. Well, my days of collecting computers that have no games are over (for now) LOL

[ubikuberalles]

If you could provide more specific information that would be a great help.

You mentioned a mouse and that would limit it to DEC boxes that had X-windows: VAXstations, DECstations and Alphastations. It's important that we figure out which of the three your friend's father is referring to since those three boxes use different chip architecture (VAX chips, RISC and Alpha chips, respectively).

Also, what operating system was used? VMS? Ultrix? Digital Unix? Software written for one OS won't work on the other (unless we can find the source code).


However she remembers playing it on his home DEC setup.

That tidbit helps as it would certainly limit the machines to workstations (DECstation, etc.). The pdp computers, usually, were very bulky and too expensive to run at home.


That'd be PDP-9,...

Actually, Spacewar was run on the pdp-1 in 1960 or 61, not the pdp-9, which didn't come out until 1968.


...DEC Alpha systems are more sophisticated (well, they're smaller, anyhow) and came about a decade later, I believe...still terribly obsolete

The Alpha technology came out around 1990 and they're not all that obsolete. Alpha chips outperformed Pentium III's until Intel, as a result of a lawsuit from Digital, bought the Alpha technology and became the sole manufacturer. In fact the Itanium technology, which is used by Linux and Unix servers, is basically the next generation of Alpha technology.

[AB Positive]

The operating system was the Digital Unix setup running X-Windows (the screenshots I saw made it look like BeOS), she remembers the time being around 1990-1995 for a timeframe. The screenies she has unfortunatly aren't necessarily from the box she had.

Another tidbit, it had checkboxes for 'guts' or 'no guts' when squashing the buggers, if that's of any help.

-AG

[Mayhem]

The Alpha technology came out around 1990 and they're not all that obsolete. Alpha chips outperformed Pentium III's until Intel, as a result of a lawsuit from Digital, bought the Alpha technology and became the sole manufacturer. In fact the Itanium technology, which is used by Linux and Unix servers, is basically the next generation of Alpha technology.

Which is what we had in our department at uni at the time I was there. And yes, you are right, they were vastly more powerful than the PCs at that time. Huge monitors (19"), 128MB RAM each, and used mostly for number crunching and analysus, but great for surfing the web too heh (in its infancy at least) :)

I believe they were running Sun OS 4 if I recall.

[ubikuberalles]

AdamG, thanks for the additional info, it will help me greatly.

I have a DECstation and I have Digital Unix on one of my disk drives. However, it's been a while since I booted the system on Unix (usually I run VMS on that system) and I don't know if the disk will still work or even remember the root password (I think I wrote it down somewhere).

So, it may take a while. I know there are a bunch of demos and games somewhere in the /usr partition and, once I get the system going, I'll check it out.

I also have a bunch of Unix CDs with demos and games on them. I'll check them out too.

The third thing I'm going to do is check out are the various Digital newsgroups and websites. It's been a while and I may have lost the links but, with Google and a little luck, I should be able to get some useful results.

I'm on the case and I'm working on it. I'll post something as soon as I have some results.


I believe they were running Sun OS 4 if I recall.

Really? Cool. 8-) I know you can run Linux on Alpha but I had no idea you could run Sun OS on one. I need to check that out.

[AB Positive]

That's awesome Altairboy, thank you. She also said that any other games you might find for the DEC D-Unix setup would be appreciated. She has an emulated setup on her computer that she'd love to relive some of the games she played as a kid on.

-AG