Marc Blank is an American computer game designer and game programmer. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the A personal computer Game (also known as a computer game or simply PC game) is a Video game played on a Personal computer, rather A "game designer" is a person who designs Video games or one who designs traditional games such as Board games Video Games Designer A video game designer A game programmer is a Programmer who primarily develops Video games or related Software (such as Game development tools. He is best known as part of the team that created one of the first hit text adventure computer games, Zork. A personal computer Game (also known as a computer game or simply PC game) is a Video game played on a Personal computer, rather Zork was one of the first Interactive fiction Computer games and an early descendant of Colossal Cave Adventure.
Blank first encountered Don Woods and Will Crowther's Adventure game while he was studying at MIT in the mid-1970s, where the game was played on mainframe computers. This is about the programmer For the meteorologist see Don Woods (meteorologist and football player see Don Woods (football player. William ("Willie" or "Will" Crowther (born 1936 is a Computer programmer and caver. Colossal Cave Adventure (also known as ADVENT, Colossal Cave, or Adventure) (Crowther 1976 Crowther Mainframes (often colloquially referred to as Big Iron) are Computers used mainly by large organizations for critical applications typically bulk data
Blank was frustrated by the computer's tiny vocabulary; when it parsed user inputs very few words were recognized. After thinking about the problem during his undergraduate years, he started work on his own adventure game using MDL, a computer language invented at MIT. Blank and a handful of friends wrote the original version of Zork on a PDP-10 while he was attending medical school at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. The PDP-10 was a Mainframe computer manufactured by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC from the late 1960s on the name stands for "Programmed Data Processor For the engineering company see AECOM The Albert Einstein College of Medicine (AECOM is a graduate school of Yeshiva University New York ( is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States and is the nation's third most populous
The free-play university version of Zork first became available on the MIT-DM PDP-10 in June 1977. Also 1977 (album by Ash. Year 1977 ( MCMLXXVII) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays It was then distributed by the Digital Equipment Corporation DECUS program and spread to many colleges in the United States and Canada. Digital Equipment Corporation was a pioneering American company in the Computer industry DECUS is an independent association of users of Hewlett-Packard and HP Partners
Blank graduated from medical school in 1979 but the call of Zork was irresistible. Year 1979 ( MCMLXXIX) was a Common year starting on Monday (link displays the 1979 Gregorian calendar) He and several friends spent the next year developing a specialized computer language that they could use to program text adventures like Zork on the new microcomputers. microcomputer is a Computer with a Microprocessor as its Central processing unit.
The Apple II's limited RAM required them to cut half of the original version of Zork. The new Zork for the Apple and the Radio Shack TRS-80, had a 600-word vocabulary. RadioShack Corporation (formerly Tandy Corporation) ( is a chain of electronics retail stores in the United States, as well as parts of North America TRS-80 was Tandy Corporation 's desktop Microcomputer model line sold through Tandy's Radio Shack stores in the late 1970s and early They founded the new company Infocom to publish the game and more like it. Infocom was a Software company, based in Cambridge Massachusetts, that produced numerous works of Interactive fiction.
In 1993 he teamed up with former Infocom writer Michael Berlyn to found Blank, Berlyn and Co. Year 1993 ( MCMXCIII) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1993 Gregorian calendar) Michael Berlyn is an American Computer game designer and writer . The company's name was later changed to Eidetic. Eidetic memory, photographic memory, or total recall is the ability to recall Images Sounds, or objects in Memory They initially published productivity software for the Apple Newton. The Apple Newton, or simply Newton, is the IPhone 's predecessor and was an early line of Personal digital assistants developed and marketed by Eidetic's Notion: The Newton List Manager became a hit and was ultimately bundled in all Newtons.
Marc returned to text adventures in 1997 when Activision producer Eddie Dombrower asked Blank and Berlyn to create a small promotional game, Zork: The Undiscovered Underground as promotion for the release of Activision's graphical game Zork: Grand Inquisitor. Year 1997 ( MCMXCVII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1997 Gregorian calendar Eddie Dombrower (born 1957 is an American Computer game and Video game designer, programmer and producer. Zork The Undiscovered Underground (or ZUU for short is an Interactive fiction Computer game written by former Infocom Implementors
As Newton sales faded, Eidetic changed gears to focus on PC and PlayStation games, producing the hit Syphon Filter in 1999. IBM PC compatible computers are those generally similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT. The PlayStation (abbreviated PS, PSone, PS1, or informally as PSX) is a 32-bit fifth generation Video game console Syphon Filter is a Third-person shooter for the PlayStation released in 1999. Year 1999 ( MCMXCIX) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1999 Gregorian calendar) In 2000 Sony acquired Eidetic for an undisclosed sum. 2000 ( MM) was a Leap year that started on Saturday of the Common Era, in accordance with the Gregorian calendar. is a multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato Tokyo, Japan, and one of the world's largest Media conglomerates with
Marc left Sony in 2004, and is now focused on his email client for the Palm Treo smartphone, ChatterEmail. "MMIV" redirects here For the Modest Mouse album see " Baron von Bullshit Rides Again "
On February 22nd 2007, Marc announced he would no longer be "actively" working on ChatterEmail. He has now taken a position with Palm Inc. Palm Inc is a Personal digital assistant and Smartphone manufacturer headquartered in Sunnyvale, California that is responsible for popular
External links
- Marc Blank profile at MobyGames
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