Release Date: 1965 (Revised January 13 and June 30, 1965)
Platform: PDP-10
Genre: Sports
Developer(s): John G. Kemeny, Keith Bellairs
Publisher(s):
Try saying that title five times quickly.
This is likely to be another shorter article, as the "game" being played has little of value to discuss - there's more to be said for what it represents. I put the word "game" in quotation marks, as The PDP-10 Timesharing World Series (henceforth to be referred to as PDP World Series) is, in fact, not a game.
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| Oh - they're letting me "throw the first ball." How generous. |
What it is can only be described as a "seed generator." What I mean is that, PDP World Series implores you to choose a number between 1 and 1,000. This number is the seed that the program will then use to print out a simulated game of baseball between the Dodgers and Yankees. The game any given number spits out is exactly the same every single time, hence the use of the term "seed."
And that's essentially it as far as PDP World Series goes as a program. The seed input is literally the only input the user has - you then merely sit back and watch as the game unfolds. Ergo, not a game. Some potential amusement can be generated with some of the absurd situations the program could spit out - apparently seed 234 is a good one.
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| A couple of adventurous innings here. Cricket's still better. |
On that note, one thing that has some draw to me, however, is doing a full statistical analysis of all 1,000 seeds. Probably only something that would appeal to my obsessive tendencies, but I'm likely to undertake such a pointless task anyway. All in the name of content.
By way of a friendly PSA - if for some unknown reason you want to try out this program - it runs via DOSbox, and you'll need to adjust the cycle settings to make the game run at a legible speed. On default settings, the print out of the game will whizz by you before you've blinked, so dropping the cycle speed to about 50-60 will see the program run at a digestible speed.
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| The single biggest innings I saw from the first 10 seeds. |
Worth far more consideration is what PDP World Series represents moving forward in the gaming timeline. This is one of the first - potentially the first - "game" program written with the BASIC programming language. BASIC is a seminal programming language that henceforth will open the floodgates of video game development, especially come the microcomputer revolution of the late 1970s.
Of course, we've seen more than a glimpse of the floodwaters pre-reboot with both David Ahl's 101 BASIC Computer Games books, and the People's Computer Company magazine both offering a wide variety of games & software written in BASIC to both play and learn programming through. And yes, I do intend to go back through every single one again.
I do intend to do a full research article on the creation of BASIC, so I'll withhold from further discussion of it and its creators here. It's safe to say, though, that advancement in game design will happen very quickly from here.
Seeing as this isn't a game, there will be no scores given.
Video:
Up Next: Dartmouth Championship Football