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May 16, 2001 Tribute to Douglas Adams

Tribute to Douglas Adams - I was shocked when I heard last weekend that Douglas Adams had passed away suddenly of a heart attack. In the late '70s, he wrote the novel The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy which is required reading for all would-be techies. He was one of the first to combine sci-fi with satire. There was also an Infocom text-based adventure game based on the book. One Christmas back in the mid-'80s, one of my cousins brought the game to play on my family's Commodore 64, and the absurdity of the situations in the game (the contortions you have to go through just to get that damn babelfish!) made it highly memorable. I thought about it a few months ago when Leo mentioned the Infocom emulator for the Palm, Frotz. In that segment, they were showing how to get the old text game Zork on your Palm handheld. I downloaded the Frotz prgram and the Zork database, and noticed how much it was like the Hitchikers game. For whatever reason, it didn't dawn on me until last week to search the internet for the game. After I downloaded it and started playing, memories just came flooding back. I decided to order the Hitchhiker "trilogy" book since it had been so long since I read it. And then by weird coincidence, a few days later, the news comes of Adams's passing. A very great loss.
Download the Frotz Infocom Emulator
Download The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Game for Palm Frotz
A caution to those who have not played the game before: It can be frustrating if
you don't complete a necessary action early on in the game (taking the junk mail from the front porch, not feeding the dog, etc.) you will continue on in the game not not die for some time. So save your games often. There are also hints and walk-throughs available on the web if you search for them.

Posted by Christy on May 16, 2001 10:41 PM

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