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File:Dial-a-Grue (6120468075).jpg

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Description

Early adventure games were frequently played via terminal systems, simple keyboard/display combinations that connected to an expensive central computer usually owned by a university or a large company. The terminal communicated with the server via an early modem. The earliest modems didn't connect directly to the phone jack, they used a device known as an "acoustic coupler" - literally a cradle that you would place the phone handset in, with a speaker and microphone set up to "talk" to the phone in binary.

The Dial-a-Grue device is the creation of Mitch Patenaude. It consists of an original unmodified terminal connected via a classic-style phone with a retrofitted amplifier which receives its data from an unmodified acoustically coupled modem. Although the modem talks to a coaster-sized modern computer running the actual game through Ubuntu Linux, the overall impression is very similar to the method that people would have originally used to run Zork.

A future version of Dial-a-Grue is intended to build the game hardware into the phone itself, eliminating the modem and the external computer entirely.
Date
Source Dial-a-Grue
Author Digital Game Museum

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This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
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This image was originally posted to Flickr by Digital Game Museum at https://flickr.com/photos/63776567@N03/6120468075 (archive). It was reviewed on 16 June 2019 by FlickreviewR 2 and was confirmed to be licensed under the terms of the cc-by-2.0.

16 June 2019

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1 August 2011

2,131,599 byte

2,248 pixel

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current08:46, 16 June 2019Thumbnail for version as of 08:46, 16 June 20194,000 × 2,248 (2.03 MB)SNAAAAKE!!Transferred from Flickr via #flickr2commons

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