Zork is a text-based adventure game first released in 1977 by Tim
Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling for mainframe
computers. Developed between 1977 and 1979 at MIT, and inspired by
Colossal Cave Adventure (1976), it was split into three episodes for
personal computers (PCs) by Infocom. In Zork, the player searches for
treasure in the abandoned Great Underground Empire, moving between the
game's hundreds of locations and interacting with objects by typing
commands in natural language that the game interprets. Zork was a
massive success, with sales increasing for years as the market for PCs
expanded. The first episode sold over 38,000 copies in 1982, and around
150,000 copies in 1984. Infocom was purchased by Activision in 1986,
leading to new Zork games beginning in 1987. Critics regard it as one of
the greatest games ever and foundational to the adventure game genre. In
2007, the Library of Congress deemed Zork as one of the ten most
important video games of all time.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zork>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1842:
First Anglo-Afghan War: William Brydon, an assistant surgeon in
the British Army, was the sole European of the 14,000 people retreating
from Kabul to Jalalabad who evaded capture or death.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Brydon>
1915:
About 30,000 people were killed when an earthquake struck the
Province of L'Aquila in Italy.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1915_Avezzano_earthquake>
1963:
Togo's first president, Sylvanus Olympio, was assassinated by
military officers in a coup d'état led by Emmanuel Bodjollé, Étienne
Eyadéma, and Kléber Dadjo.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1963_Togolese_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat>
2012:
The Italian cruise ship Costa Concordia ran aground on a reef
and capsized off Isola del Giglio, Tuscany.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costa_Concordia>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
cryptovirus:
1. (biology) A kind of plant virus associated with latent infection of
the host, and not transmissible by many means.
2. (computing) A type of malware that is used for extortion by
encrypting user files and asking for payment in exchange for the
decryption key.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cryptovirus>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Without self knowledge, without understanding the working and
functions of his machine, man cannot be free, he cannot govern himself
and he will always remain a slave.
--G. I. Gurdjieff
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/G._I._Gurdjieff>
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