Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Gary Gygax
Wow, talk about feeling old. I don't know how many of know of this 69 year-old guy, but he was the originator of Dungeons and Dragons back in 1974. That was back in the pre-PC days when all the games were played with pencil, paper, lots of reference books, and of course, the ever-present multisided dice.
I never got too much into the D&D side of the house, but spent most of my time playing board war games from places like SPI, Avalon Hill and the upstart Steve Jackson Games. We had a wargaming club, the Wichita Warhawks, at McConnell AFB in Kansas in the late 70s. We even had monetary support from the USAF Morale, Welfare and Recreation funds. Some of us played historical simulations recreating China Farm, Chariot or Chickamauga, but there was always a bunch in the back rattling dice with one guy hiding behind a three-ring binder full of notes and maps.
In the very early eighties one of my first programming projects was a game in the style of D&D called the Tunnels of Avercy hence the domain name of my woodworking site. It was written in BASIC and let you explore an underground dungeon full of monsters and treasures. I published the source code to a BBS (remember those?) many moons ago and wonder if the code still might be floating around out there - I've long since lost it.
I guess that one of the first signs of getting is seeing icons from your early adulthood fading away. RIP Mr. Gygax. You brought a lot of pleasure and companionship to a lot of lonely and strange geeks and nerds.
Labels: celebs, computers, oldies
