Let's Play (013x) - Eliza: Mother of Grok

Release Date: January 1966

Platform: IMB 7094

Genre: Chatbot

Developer(s): Joseph Weizenbaum

Publisher(s):

Gaiden articles are about game-adjacent software and projects that, while not being games, are relevant enough to warrant inclusion in the gaming history discussion.

Been a while since the last Gaiden. It was the early 1950s when I did that one, on one of the first chess programs.

Now, it's 1966. And we've got another first of some kind. This one happens to be entirely relevant to current culture, too, making it all the more interesting to look back on.

TRS-80 Front Cover

Eliza is, more or less, one of the first AI Chatbots ever created. Yes, before Grok, ChatGPT and all these other fancy artificial intelligences on the internet, there was Eliza.

However, Eliza is a bit different. Obviously, the internet wasn't around in 1966, meaning dispensing information of questionable accuracy wasn't the express purpose of Eliza. Although, in a strange way, it also is her purpose.

Eliza's creator, Joseph Weizenbaum, developed her as a sort of artificial therapist. The concept is for the user to detail to Eliza your problems, and further elaborations occur from there as she asks you questions. This approach is inspired by the person-centred therapy approach of Carl Rogers. Although, as we'll discover, Eliza is more of a parody of Rogers, rather than a genuine article.

One of Creative Computing's many articles on Eliza.

When it comes to the matter of talking with Eliza today, there's a veritable menagerie of choices. In fact, there's probably too many of them going around, particularly if, like me, you suffer from the occasional bout of choice paralysis. My philosophy on staving off such a problem is to always try to find what I'd consider the "most authentic" rendition available. In this instance, the award goes to "ELIZAGEN" - a seemingly unofficial-official site dedicated solely to Eliza. It has several authentic options available, including copying a C++ port of the source code into a browser-based code interpreter. I, however, wanted something a bit more... "aesthetic," for my purposes.

Sure, let me talk about my issues with an unknown AI. What could possibly go wrong?

And so, that led me to choose their most simple option: a github-based rendition that places Eliza in a nice, green terminal-looking webpage. I like this.

What I don't like are therapists. Don't trust them. Especially the AI-type. Eliza invites me to talk about my problems, and so I begin with what was most pressing at the time. She seemed unimpressed.

And then, things got very... uncomfortable.

I then proceeded to vent my frustrations at having to be here, which she also seemed to not understand. Then. things got... creepy.

It was at this point where I decided to not take things seriously anymore. We went back and forth talking nonsense for ~25 minutes before I decided I'd had enough. Apparently Eliza can provide a ridiculous, fake diagnosis, but I wasn't able to generate one for myself. There mustn't be anything wrong with me, then.

Video:

Up Next: The Sierra Leone Game

Let's Play (013) - Bingo: Your Personal, Automatic Bingo Caller

Release Date: 23rd of January, 1966

Platform: PDP-10

Genre: Casino/Gambling

Developer(s): Larry Bethurum

Publisher(s): DECUS

Bingo has an interesting place in the history of my content. This game was the first real mystery I ran into along my chronogaming escapades. I could get the source code for it, but I couldn't find any way to actually run it. This would end up being the case for many early BASIC games, both those inside and outside of 101 BASIC Computer Games.

But, things had to be different for this rebooted series. They simply had to be. Merely brushing over games of this ilk, declaring them "missing" just didn't sit right with me, and I couldn't leave them in that state when the code was so easily accessible.

So I searched for a way. I figured there had to be something that could make these games work.

And then, on one day in April, I found what I was looking for: TOPS-10.

TOPS-10 is a multi-system simulator for dozens of old computer systems. Most importantly for me, it simulates Digital Equipment Corporation's PDP-10. Several early BASIC games were developed on this platform, and TOPS-10 also simulates the BASIC environment of the PDP-10. I thought that, perhaps, it could run these previously unplayable BASIC games.

Bingo was the first game I tested my theory on, with it being the earliest BASIC game I was unable to play. If it could work, the rest would likely follow. So, once I figured out what to do to get BASIC programs loaded into TOPS-10, I copied Bingo in, and tried running it.

Bingo, as seen in 101 BASIC Computer Games.

It worked. I had the breakthrough I'd been hoping for for two years of blogging.

So now, we get to revisit the early chronology in a much more full manner. So many games that were off the table previously, I can now experience and show off - and add to the tier list to make it even more absurdly large than it would've been previously.

Pivoting slightly, I'll briefly go over what's known of Bingo's history before I discuss the game itself (which will also be brief.)

While the code provided in 101 BASIC Games does not provide an author - and the book also claims the author to be unknown - a much earlier version of the code has been discovered in the DECUS archives that provides an author.

Larry Bethurum from Phillips Exeter Academy is the listed author. This academy is an American boarding school, first opened in 1781. Almost older than Australia, goodness. It's got the pedigree to back up its age, producing a President, several Nobel Prize winners, and Mark Zuckerberg - founder of the now ubiquitous Facebook/Meta.

Who Larry Bethurum was remains a bit of a mystery. Whether he was a student or faculty, we can't be sure (for now.) At least he provided us a date for the completion of Bingo - January 23, 1966 - making this the third BASIC game on my timeline.

Impressively drawn, for 1966.

Bingo itself is... well's it's Bingo. Only a computer draws the cards and makes the calls. In TOPS-10, all of this happens in a split second - originally the game utilised a teletype printer, printing out the entire game sequence out. You'd have to fill out both your own and the computer's card by hand. Although, the game knows what cards it generated for that round, and therefore can announce the winner when a bingo is achieved. It boasts of this fact, warning you not to try and cheat.

It only takes a split second to get here. Spoils the fun.

The best I could manage to try and make this "authentic" in some fashion was to do some snazzy video editing and slow down all the calls so it could be played in a way that at least attempts to replicate how it would've been done in 1966. So see the video at the bottom of the page to witness that along with my "enthusiastic" bingo calls. Had to try and do something fun with a very not-fun game.

Scores

Time Played: 10 minutes (counting my "fun" version bingo calling.)

Difficulty: 0 (RNG)
Equivalent to buying a lottery ticket. Except that you're more likely to win.

Gameplay: 0
Can we even say there's "gameplay" here? I count it purely on the fact that it at least has interactivity in filling out the bingo cards, which was originally done on physical paper. That, at least, Bingo has over PDP World Series. Not saying much, considering that filling in the sheet is literally all you do.

Controls: N/A
I honestly can't even give Bingo a control score since everything is automatic after saying "YES" to start the game.

Sound: N/A

Visual: 2
I will give Bingo an extra point on the visual scale for its rendering of the bingo cards. It's fairly impressive for 1966 BASIC.

Story: N/A

Functionality: 5
Well, it didn't bug out at all when I played it, so at least it's getting free points here. Unlikely to save it from a single-digit score, though...

Accessibility: 1
Considering the hoops you need to jump through to even play this (see my tutorial,) I can only give Bingo a 1 here.

Fun Factor: 0
I think this is obvious. What enjoyment is there to be gained from watching a computer spit out a sequence of bingo calls in a split second?

Overall: 8
It should be immediately obvious that Bingo is going straight to the bottom of the list. Eight is the worst score I've given out by far, and even weighted to 11.42, it's a few points behind Draughts, which is infinitely more interesting to play, despite being barely playable to begin with.

Video:

Up Next: Eliza