Talk:Maze War

Personal memories

I was struck by the illustration on the Wahrman page, of the eyeball in a corridor; it's not captioned, but the placement implies that it's the Imlac version. I'm pretty sure it's not, that it's the Alto version.

I played both. Circa 1977, I got Spencer Love to loan me a Tech Sq key (I still have two; both the semi-unpickable Medeco, and the later one), and went in at night with a visiting young lady (visiting someone else, not me) to play Maze. I don't remember the display, but I don't think it could have had the eyeball; the Imlac was not bit-mapped, but only vectors. When the Alto donation arrived at MIT some years later, I did play that version too, but only a bit.

I do dimly recall a hack involving Bob Baldwin (now gone, sadly; an inveterate hack-meister) involving a large (4' or so diameter) black balloon painted to resemble the Alto Maze eyeball. I don't recall if it was actually deployed (and if so, where and when), or merely planned, though. Jnc (talk) 17:14, 17 November 2022 (CET)

Yes, that's the Alto eyeball. It's not the first time I have seen the eye retroactively imposed on the Imlac game. I think there are some false memories going around.

I think it was pretty cool to find a Logo version. A more elusive one would be one supposedly at ArchMach, which I only saw mentioned in passing in an email.

Altos in Tech Square: was there just one, or several? I only know it as a front end to the Dover, running Spruce.

More memorabilia! Would it be possible to see photos of those keys? Larsbrinkhoff (talk) 17:33, 17 November 2022 (CET)