Lost Journal

Humor Column
by Tim Mollen
February 9, 2006

Mastering Zork on the Apple II Plus

Journal Entry:  October 7, 1981 (age 12)

About a year ago, I became the luckiest kid I know, when my dad brought home an Apple II Plus personal computer.  He and several of his fellow engineers at IBM negotiated a group rate so each of them could tinker with this latest and greatest piece of technology.  It has 48 KB of RAM, and can display up to eight colors!  Next, I’m hoping Dad will spring for the software that allows the monitor to display lower-case letters.

Dad hasn’t been able to do much of the tinkering he planned, because I pretty much commandeered the computer from day one.  It’s now located right in my bedroom, which is awesome.  I’ve learned how to do some programming in BASIC, and I’ve written book reports for school using the Magic Windows word processing program.  But mostly I’ve played a lot of games.  My first favorite game was Little Brickout, and then I really liked Frogger.  Apple can’t seem to get the rights to most of the full-size arcade games, so they’ve made knock-off versions such as Apple-Oids for Asteroids and Snoggle for Pac-Man.  Those are fun, too.

But my new favorite game is called Zork.  It’s a text adventure game that takes place in a world with magic treasures, dragons and monsters that eat you if you stay in a dark room too long.  (“It is pitch dark.  You are likely to be eaten by a grue.”)  I have spent countless hours typing in commands like “take jewel-encrusted egg” and “hit Wizard of Frobozz with sword.”  It’s kinda like playing Dungeons and Dragons, but you don’t need books, graph paper, many-sided dice or any other players.

A lot of times, though, I play Zork with my friend Mark Murphy.  It’s part of our afternoon routine when we get out of St. Pat’s Middle School.  First we play basketball in my back yard, where we have a pretty cool concrete court.  Murph always beats me in one-on-one and H-O-R-S-E.  His height advantage is a factor, as is my complete lack of coordination.  Then we walk up to the Great American grocery store or Pancho’s Pit, to get a soda and some Rolos.  Then we head up to my room and play Zork until dinnertime.

Murph’s OK at Zork, but I’m better.  His height advantage doesn’t do him any good in this arena, and he doesn’t have 24-hour access to the Apple II.  So the redheaded geek gets to get back at him for the daily 21-4 trouncing on the b-ball court.  Together, we’ve almost completed the game of Zork.  But we’re kind of stuck, so I’m considering buying a book of hints called InvisiClues.  It comes with a special pen that you use to reveal the answers, which were written in invisible ink.  That would feel like cheating, though.  But I’ve gotta get a move on, because I’ve asked for Zork II for Christmas!

I wonder if any girls like Zork?

© 2006 Tim Mollen

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