Cream of the Crop 21/Cream of the Crop 21 (Terry Blount) (October 1996).iso/educate/scrabl39.zip/HISTORY.TXT

Text File | 1996-07-27 | 13KB | 229 lines

                          A BRIEF HISTORY OF SCRABBLE
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                                       i
                          The Scrabble (tm) Word Game

The Scrabble (tm) word game has its origins in the depths of the Great
Depression. Alfred Butts, an unemployed architect in upstate New York, had
time on his hands. It was 1931, and his career prospects were understandably
dim. What better thing to do than to try to invent a new board game?

Butts attempted to combine the elements of anagramming and crossword puzzle
solving in his new game.  Skill would predominate, but random chance would
also play a part.  He called it Criss Cross.

Butts made Criss Cross sets by hand for friends, who received it with
enthusiasm, and sent samples to game manufacturers, who ignored it.  By then
architects were again in demand, and he returned to the practice of his
profession.

By 1948, Butts was willing to give up manufacturing rights to family friends,
James Brunot and his wife.  The Brunots revised the game and changed its name
to the now familiar Scrabble (tm).  The game's popularity grew steadily over
the next few years, but it was still not a money maker.  Finally, Brunot
managed to consign some sets to the Macy's department store in 1952.  Macy's
featured the game and the orders began to pour in.  Brunot's small company
could no longer keep up with the demand and he assigned marketing and
distribution rights to the Selchow and Righter Company.

During the 1950's, Scrabble (tm) became a national mania, being featured in
the media and becoming the family game of choice.  Its popularity continued
on a gradual upward curve into the '60's and '70's.  The last decade has seen
something of a decline in Scrabble's (tm) fortunes as the younger generation
has taken to video and computer games.  Scrabble (tm) remains, however, the
premier board game, a synergistic blend of letter pattern combinations and
geometric abstraction. It is about building words from random letter
combinations, bringing forth order from chaos, and it is about conquering
time and space. It is one of those rare games that allows its players to
take part in a magic ritual for just a little while. If all the conditions
are right, it can be a mystic experience.

A few years ago, Selchow and Righter sold all rights to Scrabble (tm) and
derivative products to Coleco. Coleco went bankrupt shortly afterwards
(though not as a result of Scrabble (tm), which continued to sell steadily).
Milton Bradley, a subsidiary of Hasbro, acquired the rights and still owns
them to this day. Milton Bradley is making some efforts to revive the
popularity of the game, and is attempting to introduce it into schools as an
educational device. The large cash prizes at national tournaments ($50,000 at
the Las Vegas nationals) that generated notice in the news media were put up
by Milton Bradley.

There are a few tens of thousands of "serious" players, that is, NSA members
and tournament participants. The popular base of Scrabble (tm) is the several
million occasional and casual players. It remains to be seen whether a) the
number of casual players will increase, and b) the migration of casual
players to serious players can be encouraged.


The 3rd edition of the OSPD (tm) is valid for play as of the beginning of
February, 1996. There has also been an expurgated edition released, missing
all those nasty words and insults, but all the expurgated words will still
be valid in competitive tournament play. The file OSPD.NEW contains the
words newly added to the 3rd edition.

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                                     ii
                      Computer Versions of Scrabble (tm)

The first generation of personal computers was scarcely powerful enough to
support as complex a game as Scrabble (tm).  The Commodore Pet, TRS-80 Model
I, OSI Challenger, and early Apple II typically had between 4K and 16K of
memory, cassette tape storage, and limited graphics. The main programming
language available, BASIC, was hardly suitable for anything but fairly
simple games. This was to change quickly.

In its April 1980 issue, CREATIVE COMPUTING magazine published a listing of
"Perquackey" written in DISK BASIC for the TRS-80 Model I, by David E.
Powers. The game had much of the feel of Scrabble (tm) and hinted at greater
possibilities. This version of computer Perquackey was very playable and did
not produce boredom unless played to excess (more than 5 hours at a time).

In its December 1981 issue, BYTE Magazine featured a version of Scrabble
(tm) written by Joseph Roehrig in generic MBASIC in the annual games award
issue. After spending many hours typing in the long listing into my 16K
"Trash 80", I was rewarded with a very crude and slow simulation of what I
barely recognized as Scrabble (tm). Disappointing.

The big breakthrough came in May of 1981. Personal Software Inc. released
Monty Plays Scrabble (r) for the disk-based 48K Apple II. The graphics were
low resolution (it did *not* use the Apple's hires mode and it was actually
necessary to keep track of play on a game board), the game played s-l-o-w at
the higher levels, and that little disk drive kept grinding away as "Monty"
looked up words to play. All the same, "Monty" played a remarkably strong
game, averaging about 350 points per game at the top level and scoring about
a Bingo per game. This was an astonishing achievement for that generation of
computer hardware. Sadly, the handheld electronic version of "Monty" was a
disappointing failure.

The advent of the more powerful IBM PC brought more sophistication to games.
Virgin Games brought out its version of Scrabble (tm) in the late '80's. It
played almost as strong a game as "Monty", and the graphics were somewhat
better.  Around 1990, Virgin Games released Deluxe Scrabble (tm), for PC
compatibles with hard drive, mouse, and a VGA monitor. The graphics were
greatly improved, the game play was strong, averaging maybe 380 points per
game, and the game playing interface the best so far. After 10 years, Monty
was finally beaten.

Virgin Games Deluxe Scrabble (tm), was issued on CD ROM, and cost in the
neighborhood of $35 (discounted considerably at computer flea markets, if
you can still find it). It provides good practice for game play against
humans, especially in its timed mode. It has many extra options and features
as a bonus. The word list is only OSPD1 compatible with about 200 errors in
it. No longer available at retail.

In late 1987, Vic Rice wrote a freeware Scrabble (tm) program using EGA
graphics.  It is difficult to set it up to run on newer computers with
extended memory, but it plays an interesting game.  No current address for
him is available (his Seabrook, Texas address is no longer valid).

In early 1988, Chris Hall, now of Irving, Texas programmed a simple version
of Scrabble (tm) and released it as freeware. It allows human players to use
the computer as a surrogate for the game board and pieces when competing
against each other. There is *no* computer opponent. This is an interesting
and useful program. It may still be available for download from some BBS's.
Chris also has produced a Scrabble (tm) door for BBS's.
Chris Hall's address is:
       PO Box 165507
       Irving, TX  75016-5507
       e-mail: [e-mail]

There is a very good shareware version of Scrabble (tm) available, called
Scramble. It can be downloaded from many BBS's and is offered by some
shareware distributors. Scramble has a very intuitive player interface,
superior even to that of Virgin Games' commercial version. The graphics are
only adequate, its dictionary is very limited, and important features such
as a save-game option and a game timer are missing. Still, at $15 to
register it is a bargain and highly recommended. Scramble may be ordered
directly from: