My last update promised I would get to the mainframe game Lugi soon, but in the process of trying to set it up I made a new discovery regarding Warp.
Brief reminder: Warp is a gigantic mainframe game with 1216 points possible on the HP3000. It has an unusual parser that allowed “conditional” statements and macros. The only way I had of playing it was via a telnet server, so I was paranoid it would eventually disappear forever.
In May of last year, a genuine expert at the HP3000 (Big Dan the Blogging Man) made a “packaged” version of the HP3000. If you’ve tried the Digital Antiquarian’s TOPS-10 in a Box, this is similar: you just download and run.
HP3000 with Simh
In any case, to get to the games, start with
hello mgr.games
which is the games account, and then you can RUN WARP to play Warp offline! Bill Wolpert’s Mystery Mansion from 1978 is on there too (RUN MANSION) so you can emulate it running on the original hardware rather than using a port.
To quit, press CTRL-A to enter console mode, then type SHUTDOWN.
From a 1978 ad for the HP3000.
Renga in Blue 
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I was informed about this blog entry mentioning my HP3000 Sim ‘kit’. Evidently is is being downloaded regularly to play the HP3000’s old games. So I setup a simple menu front-end to get to the games and I got the old Adventure game running (which was my favorite back in the late 70’s when I first used this system).
You can find information specific to using the games here:
https://bigdanzblog.wordpress.com/2019/09/16/playing-old-interactive-fiction-games-on-the-hp3000/
Your work is very much appreciated!
I will be getting back to blogging about Warp probably next month (I’m finishing all my other 1980 games first, but there aren’t that many to go).
When you do Jason, I could do with some help regarding gur lryybj cvyy gung lbh svaq va gur purfg. Vg fnlf vg fgeratguraf lbh ohg qbrfa’g nyybj zr gb pneel nal zber vgrzf (ROT 13). I am beginning to wonder if it is actually a bug.
Scrub the ROT13 bug Jason. I have now struggled to 625 points (23 treasures) and can confirm that the aforementioned object is used as an antidote to a problem much later on. I had to restore an old save as I had long ago taken it.
Just so you know, I’m going to start on Warp right when October begins (rather than finishing with 1980) and I’m going to do something like a weekly Warp post and work through IFComp entries on the other days.
I am making a map via Trizbort as I go along, although even A3 paper is struggling to fit it all on. The oceans are particularly nasty to map as there seems to be a certain amount of randomness which I suppose is realistic. All links to the Warp Manual and Ross Dahlberg’s links are now dead by the way. Probably just as well as I have to figure it all out on my own.
There is a lot of punning going on down in Warp land, somewhat reminiscent of Quondam in one place with a “bank.” I have found another couple of places where you need your figurative hat on as well.
There is an interesting article re the game that I found on an old forum from 1994 by someone called Doug Parsons.
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!search/Warp$20hp3000/comp.sys.hp.mpe/YBtAaEPX37I/MGXqfxdPk1MJ
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