Editing William Crowther (programmer)

{{Use mdy dates|date=May 2022}}
{{Short description|Computer programmer and caver (born 1936)}}
{{Infobox person
| name               = William Crowther
| image              = Will Crowther Fall 2012.jpg
| caption            = Crowther in 2012
| birth_date         = {{birth year and age|1936}}
| birth_place        = [[United States]]
| alma_mater         = [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]] ([[Bachelor of Science|BS]])
| occupation         = [[Computer programmer]], [[caving|caver]]
| other_names        = Willie, Will
| spouse             = [[Patricia Crowther (caver)|Patricia Crowther]] (until 1976), Nancy S. Crowther (married 1980-present)
}}

'''William Crowther''' (born 1936) is an American [[computer programmer]], [[caver]], and [[rock climber]]. He is the co-creator of ''[[Colossal Cave Adventure]]'' from 1975 onward, a seminal computer game that influenced the first decade of [[video game design]] and inspired the [[text adventure]] [[Video game genre|game genre]].

== Biography ==
[[File:IMP Team.jpg|thumb|300px|IMP Team (left to right): Truett Thatch, Bill Bartell, [[David Walden|Dave Walden]], Jim Geisman, [[Bob Kahn|Robert Kahn]], [[Frank Heart]], Ben Barker, Marty Thorpe, Will Crowther, [[Severo Ornstein]]]]
During the early 1970s, Crowther worked at [[defense contractor]] and internet-pioneer [[Bolt Beranek and Newman]] (BBN), where he was part of the original small [[ARPANET|ARPAnet]] development team.  His implementation of a distributed distance vector routing system for the ARPAnet was an important early step in the evolution of the [[Internet]].

Crowther met and married [[Patricia Crowther (caver)|Pat Crowther]] while studying at the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]], where he received a [[B.S.]] in [[physics]] in 1958.<ref name="interviewJudy">{{cite interview
| last= Crowther| first= William| subject-link= William Crowther (programmer)| interviewer= Judy O'Neill| title= An Interview with William Crowther| url= https://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/handle/11299/107235/oh184wc.pdf?sequence=1| work= [[University of Minnesota]]| publisher= [[Charles Babbage Institute]]| location= Cambridge, MA| date= March 12, 1990| access-date= July 29, 2020| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20180430115650/https://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/handle/11299/107235/oh184wc.pdf?sequence=1| archive-date= April 30, 2018| url-status= live}}</ref>

=== Adventure ===
Following his divorce from his wife, Crowther used his spare time to develop a text-based adventure game in [[Fortran]] on BBN's [[PDP-10]].  He created it as a diversion his daughters Sandy and Laura could enjoy when they came to visit.<ref name="Montfort2005-8597">{{cite book|author=Nick Montfort|title=Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XiJFORKEm0oC|year=2005|publisher=MIT Press|isbn=978-0-262-63318-5|pages=85–97}}</ref>

Crowther wrote:<ref name="Peterson1983">{{cite book|author=Dale Peterson|title=Genesis II, Creation and Recreation with Computers|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DL1YAAAAMAAJ|year=1983|publisher=Reston Publishing Company|isbn=978-0-8359-2434-4|pages=187–188}}</ref>
{{quote|text=I had been involved in a non-computer role-playing game called [[Dungeons & Dragons|Dungeons and Dragons]] at the time, and also I had been actively exploring in caves - [[Mammoth Cave National Park|Mammoth Cave]] in Kentucky in particular. Suddenly, I got involved in a divorce, and that left me a bit pulled apart in various ways. In particular I was missing my kids. Also the caving had stopped, because that had become awkward, so I decided I would fool around and write a program that was a re-creation in fantasy of my caving, and also would be a game for the kids, and perhaps some aspects of the Dungeons and Dragons that I had been playing. My idea was that it would be a computer game that would not be intimidating to non-computer people, and that was one of the reasons why I made it so that the player directs the game with natural language input, instead of more standardized commands. My kids thought it was a lot of fun.}}

In [[Colossal Cave Adventure|Colossal Cave]], or more simply called [[Colossal Cave Adventure|''Adventure'']], the player moves around an imaginary cave system by entering simple, two-word commands and reading text describing the result.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Evans |first=Claire L. |date=July 15, 2020 |title=This Woman Inspired One of the First Hit Video Games by Mapping the World's Longest Cave |url=https://onezero.medium.com/the-woman-who-inspired-one-of-the-first-hit-video-games-by-mapping-the-worlds-longest-cave-ef572ccde6d2 |access-date=March 23, 2022 |website=OneZero |language=en}}</ref>  Crowther used his extensive knowledge of cave exploration as a basis for the gameplay, and there are many similarities between the locations in the game and those in Mammoth Cave, particularly its [[Bedquilt]] section.<ref name="Montfort2005-88">{{cite book|author=Nick Montfort|title=Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XiJFORKEm0oC|year=2005|publisher=MIT Press|isbn=978-0-262-63318-5|pages=88}}</ref>  In 1975, Crowther released the game on the early [[ARPAnet]] system, of which BBN was a prime contractor.<ref name="Montfort2005-89">{{cite book|author=Nick Montfort|title=Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XiJFORKEm0oC|year=2005|publisher=MIT Press|isbn=978-0-262-63318-5|pages=89}}</ref>

In the spring of 1976, he was contacted by Stanford researcher [[Don Woods (programmer)|Don Woods]], seeking his permission to enhance the game.  Crowther agreed, and Woods developed several enhanced versions on a [[PDP-10]] housed in the [[Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory]] (SAIL) where he worked.<ref name="Montfort2005-89"/> Over the following decade the game gained in popularity, being ported to many [[operating systems]], including personal-computer platform [[CP/M]].

The basic game structure invented by Crowther (and based in part on the example of the [[ELIZA]] text [[parser]]) was carried forward by the designers of later adventure games. [[Marc Blank]] and the team that created the [[Zork]] adventures cite ''Adventure'' as the title that inspired them to create their game.  They later founded [[Infocom]] and published a series of popular text adventures.

=== Caving ===
The location of the game in ''Colossal Cave'' was not a coincidence.  Crowther and his first wife Pat were active and dedicated cavers in the 1960s and early 1970s&mdash;both were part of many expeditions to connect the [[Mammoth Cave|Mammoth]] and [[Flint Ridge Cave|Flint Ridge]] cave systems.  Pat played a key role in the September 9, 1972 expedition that finally [[Mammoth Cave National Park#Flint–Mammoth connection (1972)|made the connection]].<ref name="BruckerWatson1987">{{cite book|author1=Roger W. Brucker|author2=Richard A. Watson|title=The Longest Cave|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1zNb5T7ODEEC|date=February 16, 1987|publisher=SIU Press|isbn=978-0-8093-1322-8|page=299}}</ref> Indeed, even during his time working at BBN, his colleagues noticed that Crowther spent a fair amount of time doing chin-ups in doorframes, which apparently helped him concentrate.<ref name="HafnerLyon1998">{{cite book|author1=Katie Hafner|author2=Matthew Lyon|title=Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins Of The Internet|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=H6ZzQhM0vSYC|date=January 21, 1998|publisher=Simon and Schuster|isbn=978-0-684-83267-8|page=98}}</ref>

As a member of the [[MIT Outing Club]] during the late 1950s and early 1960s, Crowther also played an important role in the development of rock climbing in the [[Shawangunks]] in [[New York State]].<ref name="Waterman2018">{{cite book|author1=Laura Waterman|author2=Guy Waterman|author3=Michael Wejchert|title=Yankee Rock & Ice: A History of Climbing in the Northeastern United States|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NUGIDwAAQBAJ|date=October 1, 2018|publisher=Stackpole Books|isbn=978-0-8117-6767-5|page=195}}</ref> He began climbing there in the 1950s and continues to climb.  He made the first ascent of several classic routes including Arrow, Hawk, Moonlight, and Senté.{{Citation needed|date=May 2022}} Some of these routes sparked controversy because protection bolts were placed on rappel, a new tactic that Crowther and several others began to use at the time.  The community reaction to this technique was an important part of the evolution of climbing ethics in the Shawangunks and beyond.{{Citation needed|date=December 2022}}

=== Later career ===
Crowther worked at [[Xerox PARC]] from 1976 to 1983.  During this period he met and married Nancy Sanders Burnes in 1980 in [[Palo Alto, California]].  The two of them did a lot of rock climbing with friends in [[Yosemite]] and elsewhere.  In 1983 he left Xerox and went back to Bolt Beranek and Newman in [[Cambridge, Massachusetts]].  He became active with the [[Appalachian Mountain Club]] and every year helped teach rock climbing to beginners. He continued doing that each spring until 2013.

In the 1990s, [[Cisco Systems]] bought the part of BBN where Crowther was working.  He continued to work for Cisco until his retirement in 1997{{Citation needed|date=May 2022}}  to live in [[Delanson, New York]] with his second wife Nancy.

== See also ==

* [[Frank Heart]]
* [[Robert Kahn (computer scientist)]]
* [[Severo Ornstein]]

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

== Bibliography ==
* Dibbell, Julian: "A Marketable Wonder - Spelunking the American Imagination", [http://www.juliandibbell.com/texts/cavespace.html]
* Brucker, Roger W.; Watson, Richard A. (1976). ''The Longest Cave''. New York: Knopf. {{ISBN|0-8093-1321-9}}.
* Montfort, Nick (2003). ''Twisty Little Passages: An Approach To Interactive Fiction''.  Cambridge: The MIT Press. {{ISBN|0-262-13436-5}}.
* Where Wizards Stay Up Late, by [[Katie Hafner]] and Matthew Lyon
* [[Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution]], by [[Steven Levy]]
* [[The Soul of a New Machine]], by [[Tracy Kidder]]
* ''Computing in the Middle Ages: A View From the Trenches 1955-1983'' by [[Severo Ornstein]] {{ISBN|978-1-4033-1517-5}}
* Peterson, Dale: "Genesis II: Creation and Recreation with Computers", (1983).
*IMP team photo, BBN [http://www.livinginternet.com/i/ii_imp.htm]

== External links ==
* Jerz, D.G. 2007. [http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/001/2/000009.html Somewhere Nearby is Colossal Cave: Examining Will Crowther's Original "Adventure" in Code and in Kentucky]. ''[[Digital Humanities Quarterly]]'' 1:2, summer 2007.

{{Authority control}}

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[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Video game programmers]]
[[Category:American video game designers]]
[[Category:Interactive fiction writers]]
[[Category:American cavers]]
[[Category:1936 births]]
[[Category:Game Developers Conference Pioneer Award recipients]]