Levy_S-Hackers-Heroes-Computer-Revolution

For most of her life Roberta Williams had been timid. There was a dreamy quality about her, andher doll-like brown eyes, long brown hair, and frilly, feminine wardrobe bell sleeves, suede boots,Peter Pan collars indicated that this was a woman who'd had a childhood rich in fantasy. In fact,Roberta Williams' early daydreaming had taken on almost supernatural proportions. She had alwayspictured herself in strange situations. At night she would lie in bed and construct what she referredto as "my movies." One night pirates would kidnap her and she would devise elaborate escapeplans, often involving some dashing savior. Another night she would be in ancient Greece. Alwaysdreaming of things happening to her.Daughter of a frugal agricultural inspector in Southern California, she was painfully shy, and therelative isolation of her rural home reinforced that. "I never really liked myself," she would laterreflect. "I always wanted to be someone else." She felt her parents doted on her younger brother,who suffered from epilepsy. Her form of entertainment was telling stories that would enthrall herelders, and enrapture her brother, who took the stories literally. But as she got older, and coped withdating and the grown-up world, "all that got thrown out the window," as she says now. When sheand Ken married, she passively expected him to make a living; as for herself, she was so shy she"could hardly make a phone call." The storytelling remained buried.Then one night Ken, who had brought a computer terminal home, called Roberta over to show herthis program that someone had put on the IBM mainframe computer he was connected to. "Comeon over here, Roberta," he urged, sitting on the green-carpeted floor of the spare bedroom wherehe'd put the terminal. "See this it's a really fun game."Roberta didn't want anything to do with it. First of all, she didn't like games too much. Second, itwas on a computer. Though much of Ken's life was spent communicating with computers, theywere still unfriendly ciphers to Roberta. But Ken was persistent, and finally cajoled her to sit at theterminal to see what this thing was about. This is what she saw:YOU ARE STANDING AT THE END OF A ROAD BEFORE A SMALL BRICKBUILDING.AROUND YOU IS A FOREST. A SMALL STREAM FLOWS OUT OF THE BUILDINGAND DOWN A GULLY.It was "Adventure," the game written at the Stanford AI lab by hacker Don Woods, theTolkienesque game which lured hackers and users into immersing themselves in a magical dungeonworld. And from the moment Roberta Williams tentatively poked GO EAST she was totally andirrevocably hooked. "I just couldn't stop. It was compulsive. I started playing it and kept playing it. Ihad a baby at the time, Chris was eight months old; I totally ignored him. I didn't want to bebothered. I didn't want to stop and make dinner." She didn't want to do anything except figure outhow to get to Witt's End or get around the snake. She would be up until four in the morning, tryingto figure out how to get around the damn snake to get to the giant clams. And then she would sit upin bed thinking, What didn 't I do? What else could I have done? Why couldn't I open that stupidclam? What's in it?At first Ken participated, but he soon lost interest. Roberta thought this was because Ken neverliked it when Adventure got sarcastic. You would say KILL DRAGON and it would come back andsay WHAT, WITH YOUR BARE HANDS? You couldn't get mad, you had to ignore it And youcertainly couldn't be sarcastic back, just say, "Yes." And it said WITH YOUR BARE HANDSYOU KILL THE DRAGON AND HE'S LYING DEAD AT YOUR FEET. You killed the dragon!