Forgotten conversation simulator

February 18, 2008 8:16 PM

Does anyone else remember a Gopher-era interactive conversation simulator that used to be online around 1993?

Around 1993 I used to log onto some Canadian Gopher site and run this program whose name escapes me. I think it was at the University of Toronto.

It wasn't like "Eliza" or an "Infocom" game, but it was all text, vaguely in the same genre as "Racter," only more subdued. The setting was a classroom that had just let out. Your challenge was to keep a conversation with a simulated woman classmate.

Typically she would get bored, make a polite excuse about having to catch a bus or go somewhere, and terminate the conversation. I wonder if anyone else remembers this or was able to win at it. (No, it wasn't "Galatea" but it sort of had that feeling.)

posted by johngoren to Computers & Internet (1 answer total)

I remember this well - I spent many evenings trying to beat the dragon game on the same server. As I recall it was telnet, not gopher, although the host may have served gopher too. The address was debra.dgbt.doc.ca, port 3000. You can find a fair bit of archived mention of it just by googling for "debra.dgbt.doc.ca".

It looks like the original developers were Andrew Patrick and Thomas Whalen (no Web presence I can find.) The most modern reference to it seems to be at the Communications Research Centre, where it was originally hosted.

To jog your memory a bit further, here's a dump of the opening screen and a longer transcript. IIRC, the solution to the dragon was, in part, "I can help you; I can bring you news; I promise".
posted by pocams at 9:06 AM on February 19, 2008 [1 favorite]