monop

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This is a nostalgic and dutifully typed in copy [1, 2] of a Monopoly-like program written in the summer of 1975 by myself and a school friend. It is written in Macro-10 and designed to run on a PDP-10 if you happen to have one handy.

It’s safe to say my friend and I were Monopoly fanatics, playing a dual board, figure of eight version of Monopoly every Saturday when we returned from our geek-out time at Hatfield Polytechnic (as it was then). We were privileged to have ample opportunity to use time on their DecSystem-10.

It’s intended to reincarnate this on a PiDP-10 as soon as the kit becomes publically available.

This project is very likely absolutely no use to anyone at all in any way shape or form.

  Hatfield Polytechnic
1970 “The best equipped and staffed Computer Centre in the public sector in education is formed, and, following the purchase of a DEC PDP-10 costing £256,500, the first multi-access computer system in education – linking schools, colleges and the Polytechnic – goes live.”
1975 Two Sir Fredric Osborn students getting told off by an operator because they’d printed out monop.mac on the line-printer. On telling the operator that they’d written it, he replied “Oh, yes, I’ve written one too”. We’re yet to find it.

Development

Pre-requisite requires:

  1. Text editor of choice.
  2. simh v4+; make pdp10
  3. disk image; Expand and copy t10.dsk to ./simh/disks/

All source code compilation is performed on the simulator.

Run Simulator

> cd simh
> <path_to_simh>/BIN/pdp10

PDP-10 simulator Open SIMH V4.1-0 Current        git commit id: c077c22d+uncommitted-changes
/home/nigel/Documents/monop/simh/pdp10.ini-3> attach rp0 disks/t10.dsk
%SIM-INFO: RP0: Amount of data in use in disk container 'disks/t10.dsk' cannot be determined, skipping autosizing
Logging to file "logs/pdp10.log"
BOOT V4(76)

BOOT>
[Loading from DSKB:SYSTEM.EXE[1,4]]

KS10 07-Oct-88
Why reload: NEW
Date: 
Time: 
Startup option: GO
[Rebuilding the system search list from the HOM blocks]

[Rebuilding the active swapping list from the HOM blocks]

[Rebuilding the system dump list from the HOM blocks]


KS10 14:08:40 CTY system 4097
Connected to Node CENTRA(0) Line # 42
.LOGIN 1,2
.R OPR

[CCPWFD Waiting for file daemon to start]
%%TTY STOMPER - Starting
OPR>
14:08:51          -- Message from the Accounting System --
                Account validation is not required

14:08:51        -- Begin auto take file --
                File: SYS:SYSTEM.CMD[1,4]

14:08:51        -- End auto take file --
                17 lines processed

OPR>EXIT
.SET TTY WIDTH 132
.

Load & run source

Copy the complete content of monop.mac source code to the clipboard.

.R PIP
*MONOP.MAC=TTY:
<CTRL-SHIFT-V>
	TITLE   MONOP - MONOPOLY PLAYING PROGRAM
	SUBTTL  DEFINITIONS
	PRINTX  MONOP-DEFINITIONS
  ...

… and wait…

  ...
	PRINTX  MONOP-END OF PASS
  END     MONOP
<CTRL-Z>
*<CTRL-C>
.
.COMPILE MONOP.MAC /DLIST
.
.LOAD MONOP
LINK:   Loading

EXIT

.SAVE
MONOP saved
.RUN


MONOPOLY.
=========

WOULD YOU LIKE TO PLAY ?Y

PLEASE TYPE IN YOUR CHRISTIAN NAME: NIGEL
WOULD YOU LIKE SOME INSTRUCTIONS NIGEL ?Y

THIS PROGRAM ENABLES YOU TO HAVE A GAME OF MONOPOLY AGAINST ME.
TYPE ONE OF THE FOLLOWING INSTRUCTIONS EACH TIME `##` IS OUTPUT
BUY:    TO BUY HOUSES OR PROPERTY.
CASH:   TO FIND OUT HOW MUCH CASH YOU HAVE LEFT.
EXIT:   TO CREATE A CONTINUATION FILE AND EXIT.
GETOUT: TO GET OUT OF JAIL.
HELP:   TO OBTAIN A BRIEF SUMMARY OF THESE INSTRUCTIONS.
MORTGAGE:       TO MORTGAGE ANY OF YOUR PROPERTY.
PROPERTY:       TO FIND OUT WHAT PROPERTY YOU'VE GOT.
QUIT:   TO GIVE THE GAME TO ME.
RENT:   TO COLLECT RENT FROM ME.
        IN THE EVENT OF THROWING A DOUBLE I WILL GIVE YOU
        ABOUT TWO SECONDS TO TYPE 'RENT' IF I LAND ON YOUR PROPERTY.
SELL:   TO SELL HOUSES OR HOTELS (1 HOTEL=5 HOUSES)
STATE:  TO GET A LIST OF THE COMPLETE STATE OF THE BOARD.
THROW:  TO THROW THE DICE.
UNMORTGAGE:TO UNMORTGAGE ANY OF YOUR PROPERTY.
<CR>:   CARRIAGE RETURN WILL ALLOW ME TO HAVE MY GO.

IN ALL THESE INSTRUCTIONS ONLY THE FIRST TWO CHARACTERS WILL
BE RECOGNISED.

I SHALL START THIS GAME.
I'VE GOT $1500
I'VE THROWN 10 AND I AM NOW ON JUST VISITING JAIL

YOUR TURN. ## 

... some while later...

## THROW
YOU'VE THROWN 7 AND YOU ARE NOW ON FLEET STREET
THATS MY PROPERTY
RENT COLLECTED:- $1050

HARD LUCK NIGEL YOU HAVE JUST LOST.
I KNEW ALL THE TIME I COULD BEAT YOU.
I HOPE YOU ENJOYED THE GAME AND WILL PLAY WITH ME AGAIN SOMETIME ...
BE SEEING YOU
BYE BYE NIGEL

EXIT

.

Acknowledgements

Notes

  1. The .TITLE was changed to MONOP - ... from the original ... simply to make the SAVE command above save MONOP.EXE by default, rather than MONOPO.EXE.
  2. <BEL> characters were removed from outputted text as they were annoying - more so than in 1975!
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