Zork Infocom PDP-11First Edition Manual

Written by Link on 20th November, 2008

Zork was one of the first interactive fiction computer games and is commonly recognized among geek and gaming culture. As the screenshot shows, it’s essentially a text based Adventure Game.

The game was originally developed and released on a PDP-10 (and the PDP-11) mainframe computer, which was commonly used in universities in the 70’s and to some extent the early 80’s.

Later it made the translation to popular systems of the time such as Apple II, the Commodore 64, the Atari 8-bit family, the TRS-80, and the IBM PC.

Apparently less than 100 copies of the 1980 PDP-11 edition of Zork were sold, making it quite a rare item.

Currently up on eBay is the original owner’s manual from the PDP-11 edition of Zork: The Great Underground Empire - Part 1, it’s also autographed by three of the game’s authors: Mark Blank, Dave Lebling and Joel Berez.

Also included is an original Infocom business card, dating from the same period as the manual. No copy of the original floppy however.

Now, before you see the price on this auction, you should know that there is a very active collecting scene dedicated to Infocom games.

Link

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6 Responses to “Zork Infocom PDP-11First Edition Manual”

Video Gamer Now-The Ultimate Gaming and Entertainment Site » Blog Archive » GameSetLinks: Who Watches The Indies? on November 27th, 2008 4:17 am

[...] Zork Infocom PDP-11 First Edition Manual | PC Gaming | gameSniped.com Wow, truly a piece of gaming history - the manual for the mainframe version of Zork - and it went for a suitably large chunk of change, too. [...]
Paul Collins on November 27th, 2008 6:55 am

PDPs were minicomputers, not mainframes.
Nick Moffitt on November 27th, 2008 6:58 am

Also, software for the PDP-11 would most likely have been distributed on magnetic or (less commonly by 1980) paper tape, not diskette.
Torley on November 27th, 2008 11:00 am

Do you have fond memories of feelies? I liked those little trinkets that Infocom included with many of their titles. Made them feel a lot more real, and evoked connections between the objects and the text you’d get into onscreen.
Link on November 27th, 2008 1:11 pm

Thanks for the clarification Paul and Nick.

Achieve note: Sold for US $2,348.31.
rudi niemeijer » Put a Zork in it! on January 2nd, 2009 4:18 pm

[...] de drie oorspronkelijke auteurs Mark Blank, Dave Lebling en Joel Berez! Het kost wat, maar dan heb je ook [...]