According to Wikipedia, all of the original programmers are still alive.
Wouldn't it be possible to contact at least 1 of them, and settle the question? Story says author tried... Try again, ask around.
Story & comments read a lot like speculation. Why settle for that when original source(s) still exist?
kps 8 minutes ago [-]
The original programmers might settle the question, but Wikipedia wouldn't allow the answer.
Something similar happened a decade ago with the page for the Unix command `cron` — it contained a made-up backronym (‘command run on …’) that had once appeared in print somewhere, and the guardians of Wikipedia zealously rejected correction (it's from ‘chrono‐’) from the original author, Brian Kernighan.
might be a more informative link to the specific change, btw.
etep 15 hours ago [-]
The edit distance form work to zork is 1.
For this, and because of tab completions (perhaps tab completions post-date zork, but nonetheless) I find the work:zork story compelling. I have used the first letter is replaced by "z" trick many times (z-tab, done!), and that pre-dated any contemplation of the zork mystery.
big85 15 hours ago [-]
Ah, but there are plenty of folk etymologies which, although they make a lot of logical sense, aren't true.
ashenke 14 hours ago [-]
Also, W and Z are switched in the AZERTY keyboard. So maybe someone mistyped work on the wrong layout??
duskwuff 10 hours ago [-]
This is mentioned in the article "A Note on the Word 'Zork'", linked right above the 'pterodactyl chopper':
Certainly sounds plausible. Most of the time the first thing I do after I log in to a terminal is "cd work." And if I blundered that on a french keyboard at some point it might pop into my head as a funny thing to name a project.
Cpoll 11 hours ago [-]
I can't imagine there were lots of AZERTY keyboards kicking around MIT?
consp 9 hours ago [-]
Maybe a French or Canadian person typed it wrong often and complained about the weird location of the w. Don't think it is the reason but there are more than one way to explain there lines of thought.
philistine 2 hours ago [-]
No québécois would be caught dead with an azerty layout.
Wouldn't it be possible to contact at least 1 of them, and settle the question? Story says author tried... Try again, ask around.
Story & comments read a lot like speculation. Why settle for that when original source(s) still exist?
Something similar happened a decade ago with the page for the Unix command `cron` — it contained a made-up backronym (‘command run on …’) that had once appeared in print somewhere, and the guardians of Wikipedia zealously rejected correction (it's from ‘chrono‐’) from the original author, Brian Kernighan.
might be a more informative link to the specific change, btw.
For this, and because of tab completions (perhaps tab completions post-date zork, but nonetheless) I find the work:zork story compelling. I have used the first letter is replaced by "z" trick many times (z-tab, done!), and that pre-dated any contemplation of the zork mystery.
https://web.archive.org/web/20100112110305/https://nickm.com...
---The words defined in this dictionary are the property of the Tech
ZORCH: to attack with an inverse heat sink.Another of David Sawyer's sound effects, which I reinterpreted as a colorful variant of "scorch."