Talk:William Crowther

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moved from Wikipedia:Village pump

This William Crowther page is all wonky. It seems like it might be a legit topic, if it lost the BBS tone, but I don't know enough about net history or spelunking to dare an edit. Not sure what do about it, so came here. -- Jengod 00:52, 7 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Yeah, the page should go on cleanup. Crowther is encyclopedic (I think, anyway) as co-author of Adventure, the first computer adventure type game. We already have a decent page for his co-author, Don Woods -- Finlay McWalter 01:02, 7 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Yes, I know this is four years after this ^^ post. But I just want to make one thing clear. Don Woods was not coauthor of Adventure. Will Crowther wrote it originally, but never really polished it up due to problems in his personal life (a divorce, among other things). Don Woods came across it and realized its potential, despite its many bugs. He found Crowther and asked him if he could finish the game. After receiving his blessing, Woods completed the standard 350-point version we have today. Just wanted to set the record straight. Alinnisawest (talk) 19:49, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Wik and myself have wikified and tidied it, so I took the liberty of removing it from cleanup. Comments and enhancements still welcome, however. -- Finlay McWalter 16:22, 9 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Added and clarified a few bits-- also created a separate page for Patricia Crowther. Eventually, I'd like to include more on his development of Adventure and more detailed info on his participation in some of the expeditions to connect the Mammoth and Flint Ridge cave systems. Anyone know if he was up to anything interesting in the 80s or later? Naltrexone 07:06, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Crowther began using his spare time to develop a simple text-based adventure game in FORTRAN on BBN's PDP-10 minicomputer.
I don't think any PDP-10 ever was a "minicomputer". AFAIK all PDP-10 installations needed at least one wall for themselves. If anything I suspect "supercomputer" would be more appropriate here. OK, to keep it realistic: the term of those days would probably be something like "time-sharing mainframe".
Here's an example PDP-10 installation including some peripherals: http://www.osfn.org/rcs/images/KL-10/pdp10sys.jpg
--BjKa 11:59, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Although they called the Control Data machines supercomputers in the 1970s, what we usually refer to as this term now started with Cray in the 1980s. Mini's took the entirety of a desktop, but not an entire room. So this is simply an error to be fixed. MobyMimic 07:21, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Willie Crowther Climber?

I read somewhere that Willie Crowther was John Stannard's mentor in the Gunks Does anyone have any info? Lhclayton 18:31, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Will (whom I've had the pleasure of having as a rock-climbing mentor) developed many of the best routes in the 'Gunks. I particularly remember being led by him personally up one of his most famous routes, Hawk. (That wasn't the only one that he led me on, but that was the most memorable experience, if only because he took me off the text-book route.) I recommend looking into any of the climbing guides to the 'Gunks--they all list who did them first, and a surprising number of them were by Will.

I'll come back and hopefully contribute later, but for now I'll only mention that Will is endearingly generous with his time for beginning rock climbers and I still feel much gratitude for the time he spent with me--an over-weight software engineer and untalented novice climber--long before I knew anything about his contributions to the internet, Adventure, caving and rock-climbing.

I should also mention that most of his effort in this regard is related to his very active participation in the Boston chapter of the Appalachian Mountain Club, which is another lead that should be followed in documenting his part in the development of rock climbing in the NE.

Plenty of info in "Yankee Rock and Ice." I'm skeptical of the claim in the article that Crowther placed bolts on rappel; the Watermans mention examining the route on rappel, maybe placing pitons, and climbing a route (The Arrow in particular) on toprope first, but no mention of bolts. I'd feel awkward asking him. Will's contribution to climbing continues as a very active instructor in the AMC Boston chapter's annual rock program; see [1]. --Jnik (talk) 22:57, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
I was flipping through someone else's copy of Williams while waiting for a climb; he mentions three bolts on Arrow were placed on rap by the FA team. So there's a citation if someone has a copy and cares to add it properly. --Jnik (talk) 14:22, 23 May 2008 (UTC)