Andrew wrote:
Thanks for providing the links, fascinating reading.
You're welcome. I found my quickie search to yield fascinating stuff. Unfortunately, I have little time these days to pursue the level of research I'd like to (which involves talking to a lot of the old-timers by phone, digging through obscure archives, even doing some library research to get paper copies of old articles and books that I can't get online.)
In answer to one of your questions,
The website: http://www.aston.ac.uk/lss/english/02_msc/02_diss/mward.jsp
Mentions using alice10.txt, as well as a few other early PG texts, from the the Walnut Creek CD ROM.
Any chance of finding one of those still floating around somewhere?
Interesting. It is unknown whether this is the original one (version 1.0) which appeared before the version 1.1 edition linked in my prior message. This might have been version 10.0, for example (Alice is currently at version 30). Until we find it, we won't know for sure. (The date of the WC CD-ROM is 1997, and I would surmise they would have kept up with the latest PG texts, but then maybe not.) The ultimate authority on whether Michael Hart keyed-in and/or released "Alice" well before 1990 is Michael himself. Hopefully he will reply and clarify matters. Better yet, to point out which BBS had archived it, so we can try to locate a copy with a timestamp. Jon