Dope Wars
Hmm, I'm sore more than a few of you know what game I'm talking about. It was put on palm, ported to all manner of Texas Instruments calculators... etc.. even online multi-user versions were made.
Who started that damn thing?
Well, hahaha.. it turns out a Microsoft Employee working currently on the X360 did.
The article is an interview about the X360 but, of course, the thing that stood out:
"Arstechnica: I hear that you are the author of "Dope Wars." My friends and co-workers have wasted countless hours and the total lost productivity from that game is probably too high to measure. What's the story of how that came about?
Matt Lee: Yes, I wrote DopeWars for the Palm handheld. I bought a PalmPilot in my junior year at college, and I wanted to learn how to program for it. DopeWars was my "Hello World" program, and it was styled as closely as possible after the old DOS game of the same name. About a year after I released it, it became really popular. For two years straight it was the number one PalmOS download on download.com. It was also the top download on Palm's corporate website, until Palm's CEO noticed it and insisted it be taken down. I received a very apologetic e-mail from the webmaster about that.
Then the mainstream media got wind of it, which quickly spiraled out of control, as you would expect. My picture was in the New York Times, and I hear my software and I were talked about in a not-so-positive light on the floor of the U.S. Senate. The Windows version was written by another guy, and both of us wound up being interviewed by press people. At one point we got in touch with each other just so we could get our stories straight. I was going to write a PocketPC version, but someone else beat me to the punch. It's a good thing Microsoft hired me despite my shady background!"
Hmm.. perhaps he didn't originate it, since it apparently was modeled after some DOS game? But he popularized it.
And Lee? Is this dude Korean? Goddamned video game playing Koreans. What's the deal with those people anyway!
Who started that damn thing?
Well, hahaha.. it turns out a Microsoft Employee working currently on the X360 did.
The article is an interview about the X360 but, of course, the thing that stood out:
"Arstechnica: I hear that you are the author of "Dope Wars." My friends and co-workers have wasted countless hours and the total lost productivity from that game is probably too high to measure. What's the story of how that came about?
Matt Lee: Yes, I wrote DopeWars for the Palm handheld. I bought a PalmPilot in my junior year at college, and I wanted to learn how to program for it. DopeWars was my "Hello World" program, and it was styled as closely as possible after the old DOS game of the same name. About a year after I released it, it became really popular. For two years straight it was the number one PalmOS download on download.com. It was also the top download on Palm's corporate website, until Palm's CEO noticed it and insisted it be taken down. I received a very apologetic e-mail from the webmaster about that.
Then the mainstream media got wind of it, which quickly spiraled out of control, as you would expect. My picture was in the New York Times, and I hear my software and I were talked about in a not-so-positive light on the floor of the U.S. Senate. The Windows version was written by another guy, and both of us wound up being interviewed by press people. At one point we got in touch with each other just so we could get our stories straight. I was going to write a PocketPC version, but someone else beat me to the punch. It's a good thing Microsoft hired me despite my shady background!"
Hmm.. perhaps he didn't originate it, since it apparently was modeled after some DOS game? But he popularized it.
And Lee? Is this dude Korean? Goddamned video game playing Koreans. What's the deal with those people anyway!
posted by Gigaflop at
1:24 PM
2 Comments:
me being chinese i feel obligated to point this out:
Lee is not only a common English first name, a common English last name, and a common Korean last name, it's also a (very) common Chinese last name.
so the dude in question is probably chinese, just by pure statistics (ie. the world has more chinese than koreans). but you could still be right. or we can both be wrong and he's black.
black or white, all this falls under the "who the hell really gives a shit" category.
By
Anonymous, at 7:58 PM
(where's the edit comment option?)
wanted to add:
all things considered, you probably just wanted to take a swipe at koreans. i cheer you on brother. (starcraft)
By
Anonymous, at 8:03 PM
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