Dunnet (game)
Encyclopedia
Dunnet is a text adventure written by Ron Schnell in 1983. The game enjoys certain popularity because since 1992 it is part of the default packages in many of the Emacs
versions. The word Dunnet is derived from the first three letters of dungeon and the last three letters of Arpanet
. It was first written in Maclisp
for the DECSYSTEM-20
, then later re-written in Emacs Lisp
so as to be more portable
.
and Mac OS X
. It can be run by running
or the key sequence
system, and transporting themselves around the Arpanet
. There are many subtle jokes in this game, and there are multiple ways of ending the game.
Emacs
Emacs is a class of text editors, usually characterized by their extensibility. GNU Emacs has over 1,000 commands. It also allows the user to combine these commands into macros to automate work.Development began in the mid-1970s and continues actively...
versions. The word Dunnet is derived from the first three letters of dungeon and the last three letters of Arpanet
ARPANET
The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network , was the world's first operational packet switching network and the core network of a set that came to compose the global Internet...
. It was first written in Maclisp
Maclisp
MACLISP is a dialect of the Lisp programming language. It originated at MIT's Project MAC in the late 1960s and was based on Lisp 1.5. Richard Greenblatt was the main developer of the original codebase for the PDP-6; Jonl White was responsible for its later maintenance and development...
for the DECSYSTEM-20
DECSYSTEM-20
The DECSYSTEM-20 was a 36-bit Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-10 mainframe computer running the TOPS-20 operating system.PDP-10 computers running the TOPS-10 operating system were labeled DECsystem-10 as a way of differentiating them from the PDP-11...
, then later re-written in Emacs Lisp
Emacs Lisp
Emacs Lisp is a dialect of the Lisp programming language used by the GNU Emacs and XEmacs text editors . It is used for implementing most of the editing functionality built into Emacs, the remainder being written in C...
so as to be more portable
Porting
In computer science, porting is the process of adapting software so that an executable program can be created for a computing environment that is different from the one for which it was originally designed...
.
Modern Versions
Dunnet is playable on any operating system with the Emacs editor. Emacs comes with most Unixes, including distributions of LinuxLinux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
and Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
. It can be run by running
emacs -batch -l dunnet in a shellShell (computing)
A shell is a piece of software that provides an interface for users of an operating system which provides access to the services of a kernel. However, the term is also applied very loosely to applications and may include any software that is "built around" a particular component, such as web...
or the key sequence
M-x dunnet within Emacs, the former being the preferred and official way to run it .Plot
The game starts out like most text adventures, but turns to the surreal, when players realize that they are actually walking around inside a UnixUnix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
system, and transporting themselves around the Arpanet
ARPANET
The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network , was the world's first operational packet switching network and the core network of a set that came to compose the global Internet...
. There are many subtle jokes in this game, and there are multiple ways of ending the game.