Talk:Don Woods

This is a cool story. However, I don't know that it belongs in an encyclopedia article. Anecdotes are fine, but more facts would be better. - Dreamword 20:52 Feb 26, 2003 (UTC)

Makes sense to me. - Hephaestos 02:21 Mar 14, 2003 (UTC)

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(Personal Story)

An old-school hacker, great programmer, and all-around cool guy. I used to work with Don in the mid-1990's at ClariNet Communications (http://www.clari.net) and he had a map on his office wall that a fan of Colossal Cave Adventure had drawn by hand showing the layout of the entire cave system, in 3D. It was really cool. :-)

The funny thing was, I didn't know Don had done Adventure for the first month or two that we worked together, and one day I saw someone posting on Usenet and getting all excited flustered at hearing from "*THE* Don Woods".

Me: "Don, why does your name provoke such a reaction in people on the Net?"

Don: "Did you ever hear of an old text-based dungeon game called 'Adventure'?"

Me: "Oh yeah! I used to play that back in 1981 on Apple ][ computers! It was great!"

Don: "Most of the geeks in Silicon Valley say the same thing. I created it."

Me: "Oh." :-)

After that, we had numerous conversations about the game, and I got to see the latest versions he was working on. Even 20 years later, he continued to tweak and improve it, and often kept a copy running on a machine wherever he worked.

I haven't seen Don in about 4 years. If someone knows how to contact him, send him my way.

You can find out more about the history of the game and the later offshoots like Zork here (http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&threadm=1aifu4INNbl9%40early-bird.think.com&rnum=1&prev=/groups%3Fq%3D%252B%2522THE%2BDon%2BWoods%2522%2Bcough%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26selm%3D1aifu4INNbl9%2540early-bird.think.com%26rnum%3D1).

User:PatrickSalsbury

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perdurable ? -- Zoe

Oddly, an actual word meaning "very durable" - so durable it can be considered permanent. ('per-' + 'durable' as an intensifier, like 'per-'+'lucid' -> 'pellucid'). I cannot myself say how perdurable Don Woods is, but I suspect he falls somewhat short of eternal. -- Someone else 03:57 Mar 14, 2003 (UTC)

In this context, does that make the use of the word POV? -- Zoe

Probably not, but I have no qualms about changing it to a word that won't make the reader go 'huh?' <G>. -- Someone else 04:13 Mar 14, 2003 (UTC)