Chipwits
Tuesday, March 29th, 2005
Just after the Macintosh came out there was a rumor about a programmable robot game called Chipwits that was coming out within year one. It sounded great to me and I was an early buyer of Chipwits.
Chipwits was one of those hard to describe applications: sitting on the fence between game, simulation, and programming instruction. As soon as I got it and ran it (from disk, of course) I realized that what sounded cool was going to take a bit of time to learn.
Chipwits consisted of a number of “environments” or rooms with different layouts and different obstacles. The object was to program the chipwit to navigate the room, zapping bugs, eating pie, and turning when necessary before his energy level ran low.
The programming was done, in typical Macintosh fashion, by dragging tiles around into logic arrays, then saving them and running the chipwit in a room. This was an interpreted environment so if the chipwit ran into problems a few clicks and you were back in his brain futzing with his logic.
What was great about this application was that it was hilarious while at the same time challenging and fun.
Chipwits was soon out of sync with the Macintosh world as more powerful programming languages supplanted MacForth and the program grew incompatible with newer systems. I like to think of Chipwits as my pre-HyperCard warm up with amateur programming. It was also a load of fun and as I remember it, a number of people in the Eugene Macintosh users group got deeply into it along with me. Wow, 20 years is a very long time.
Richard – you’re not the only one who fondly remembers ChipWits. It seems there is a new project from a French Physics professor in a similar vein – RobotProg is programmed by flowchart instead of icons. I thought you might be interested!
http://www.physicsbox.com/indexrobotprogen.html
Wow, thank god someone else remembers ChipWits as fondly as I do. Sorry your comment got held, I’m still tinkerikng with how to set up WordPress so that the right comments get right through and the spam gets filtered.
Did you also play around with logo and lego logo and HyperCard and HyperCard controlling robots via XCMDs? Just curious. I was never deeply into the robot control piece as much as the fun interaction with my own learning (or lack thereof) of the “ibol” language. I still think ChipWits was an incredible tool for learning and have not seen much better since.
I just had a related thought: there was a great program for the Apple II called Rocky’s Boots that was sort of chipwits before Chipwits.
Rocky’s Boots 1
Rocky’s Boots 2
There is quite an active interest in ChipWits. Go to http://mac.the-underdogs.org/ and search for ChipWits.
If you like the drag-and-drop style of programming, consider Quickmedia.
http://www.omegaconcept.fr/index.php?oc=28
There is a demo of version 5. Version 6 will be out in a week or so.
I wrote ChipWits with my partner Mike Johnston just over 20 years ago. I wrote it first for the Mac in MacFORTH, a cool little language, and ported it to the Apple II and C-64 (I did a Mac interface on the C64 with drop-down menus and a cursor).
It was a blast to design. I supported the program for a few years because every time Apple revved the OS it would break. I tried to be a very law-abiding programmer but the guys who wrote MacFORTH never got the language to work with OS revs.
After ChipWits I went on to do King of Chicago for Cinemaware. I am proud of both ChipWits and KoC.
Thanks,
Doug Sharp
Doug, wow, you’re a legend… I know all about you and was a huge Chipwits fan and avid user. I also know about MacForth’s orphaning as two members of our Eugene (Oregon) Macintosh users group were into it back then and brought in many cool programs they made with it. They both moved on to other languages but I remember those old days.
I kept a 128K Mac around for many years after I’d moved on to other Machines, just to play around with ChipWits.
Thanks for commenting here Doug and if you have any more fun tidbits or details to add to the story please let us all know.
I was recently having a conversation with someone about Lego MindStorms and the subject turned to “that old Mac game where you programmed a robot…”.
Later I did a web search which reminded me that the game was ChipWits and eventually led me to this blog entry.
As someone who once enjoyed ChipWits and who also once programmed in MacForth, Neon and Mops (the latter two being Object-Oriented Forth-like languages) I enjoyed reading the comments herein.
You might also be interested in two other related Mac programs, one old and one new.
The old one was a game called RoboSport by Maxis. To quote the packaging: “RoboSport is a computerized battle-strategy simulation game. It combines the tactical challenge of chess with the intensity of guerilla warfare to provide total strategic mayhem”, i.e., you programmed robots and they fought. It ran under OS 9 and, for all I know, may run under the OS X / OS 9 environment. The reason I don’t know for sure is that the only copy I currently have is on a floppy disk that I can’t read…perhaps I’ll break out an old machine and copy the disk to a USB drive to try on an OS X system.
The new one is a game called Mind Rover: The Europa Project by VP Mac Games and its box copy states “…is ‘The Intelligent Robot Simulator’ and a new generation of 3D strategy/programming gaming…”. It runs on OS 9 or OS X (I bought it recently at an Apple Store).
Regards,
Gary Nunes
Gary: thanks for the comment and suggestions for other robots to program.
In the late ’80s I dug heavily into HyperCard and going deep with HyperTalk satisfied my urge to see what my pea brain could do with a coherent language controlling things that I could really relate to to do useful things. HyperCard was it for me and once I was through with it (or shall we say, calmly once Apple lost its way with it) I was through with this kind of digital building.
Post ChipWits or Rocky’s Boots many others looked for similar environments or built them themselves but I was never all that much into programming, more the personal experiment to see if I could get deeply engaged. I did and I’m glad I did.
I still have the ChipWits disks and of course, have nothing left to run them on. It would have been worth keeping a 512K just to do fun stuff like this, or maybe an SE/30. Now that was a machine!
I troll every month or so looking for The New Chipwits. Nothing ever appears, but I keep looking. Heck, I even check http://www.chipwits.com/ and that is six years out of date.
Doug, if this message gets to you, what would it take to update Chipwits for OS X? The game/simulation has cult following. Maybe you could made a modern version for use in schools. Maybe you could just release it for open-source. Hey, look what scummvm.org did for the old Lucas Arts games.
There is a parallel blog about Chipwits going on at http://www.thespoke.net/MyBlog/Mr_I/MyBlog_Comments.aspx?ID=96548
Wow, ChipWits!
I first met it via a review in the last issue (sigh) of Creative Computing. Even back then, I photocopied the review, vowing to write my own version.
Long ago :)
But, a couple of months ago, I got myself a Macintosh SE off eBay, together with an original version of ChipWits. Now it sits in my office, and I can play ChipWits, for the first time – joy!
And yes, I still plan to write an opensource version of it sometime…
Klaus: when you do, please, please, please let me know. I’d love to mess with it again. So much fun with wonderful interaction and learning. Ah, pie and oil, what could be better?
My brother Vern (creator of Midnight Mansion) and I used to have competitions with Chipwits. I still have printouts of the Chipwits I built and the high scors I got with them.
Yeah, I still have some ChipWits “fragments” including the original version 1.0 install disks. Alas, I don’t have anything to install them on anymore and now I wish I’d kept one of my early Macs just to run ChipWits on.
Searchdiver: Midnight Mansion is a tres cool side-scroller in the spirit of Dark Castle. Perhaps Vern could be persuaded to likewise revive Chipwits.
Here is an open questions for everybody. Suppose Vern or somebody else could make a product “where you teach robots to think for themselves” — an IBOL-like drag-and-drop progamming environment. How much would you pay?
If it was like Chipwits and shipping now, I would be willing to pay, say, $49 now. How about the rest of you?
Me too, as long as it ran in Tiger and was standard Mac UI.
OK…It’s been too long. Sorry. I’m really impressed with your enthusiasm for Chipwits. Doug and I know it’s the best thing we’ve ever done. I’ve been working on a 3-D MM Director version (cross platform/Shockwave, etc). but still have a few kinks to work out, and it seems I’ve never enough time. I’m trying to allow two CWs simultaneously in one environment, and adding an environment editor, too. Don’t give up on us… http://www.chipwits.com. I’ll update and provide FAQ as soon as possible. Thanks for hanging in there…and your continued interest.
Mike Johnston
Mike, you make it, we’ll promote it (if it’s good and I have no doubt that it will be). I think if you take advantage of all the great things built into OS X: great sound, graphics, etc. it will be a terrific app.
Before we get too excited, post 18 attributed to Mike Johnston might not really be Mike. A quick Googling of Chipwits and Director turns up something on dirGames-L talking about a Chipwits revival using Director — and this discussion dates back five years!
Either poster 18 is a troll or, at half a decade and still no beta, Mike Johnson is the new Douglas Adams of procrastination.
Olive, you should do a “who is” domain lookup before slamming down accusations like that. Troll? Sheesh, the guy is doing a thankless work of art and you’re complaining that it’s been undone for years? Good lord, if you’re that upset over it then I suggest you learn how to code and do it yourself. Not all of us are blessed with abundant freetime to work on the things we love to do. (I for one have a stack of unfinished projects that would be amazing if they ever see the light of day)
Interactive Illusions, Inc.
3846 Abbott Ave S
Minneapolis, MN 55410
US
Domain Name: CHIPWITS.COM
Administrative Contact :
Johnston, Michael
mjohnstonAOLCOM
3846 Abbott Ave S
Minneapolis,, MN 55410
US
Phone: (612) 926-5924
Fax: (612) 926-0649
Technical Contact :
Support, Tech **
domreg@interland.com
303 Peachtree Center Avenue
Suite 500
Atlanta, GA 30303
US
Phone: 1.800.589.5060
Fax: 410.771.9507
Record expires on 11-Dec-2005
Record created on 12-Dec-1997
Database last updated on 08-Jul-2004
Brenadn robert, you probably didn’t mean to start a flame war but you really didn’t take the time to read my post.
Try it again, strating with the disjunctive (that would be the “either, or” part).
It is not so hard to see why you “have a stack of unfinished projects”.
No, no flame war was intended. Arguing on the internet is equally productive to p***ng into the wind. Doesn’t really solve a thing.
I have a stack of unfinished projects because I have no freetime. I have no freetime because i work 60+ hours a week for corporate america building content management systems and websites for fortune 100 companies. my version of procrastination is not by design, but rather a consequence of my career decisions. But nice try. :-)
An “Internet troll” or “Forum Troll” is a person who posts outrageous message to bait people to answer. Forum Troll delights in sowing discord on the forums. A troll is someone who inspires flaming rhetoric, someone who is purposely provoking and pulling people into flaming discussion.
Ironically, I think that you or I could be more easily labeled as Trolls in this sense — all the poor guy asked was that we don’t give up on him. :-) All the same, I eagerly await the outcome of whatever surfaces on chipwits.com. Have a good one.
Okay you two… Let’s keep it focused on ChipWits and what made it cool. I’m delighted to have this discussion here but we ought to keep it on track.
So, did both of you actually have Macs in the old days and use ChipWits?
Apple //e (with a mouse, believe it or not).
I’m currently taking a stab at writing this thing in Java — more as a exercise to learn the yummy new Java 5 language features. But I just realized that, being written in Java, it should theoretically run on anything with a JVM. What a great side effect.
I hope that one day I’ll finish it — but as of yet all I’ve done is object model stuff, describing the coordinate plane (in case it one day changes to 3D it won’t require rewriting everything completely) and the basic behavior of objects moving around in the space. It’s still a little too abstract to measure any amount of real completion. So let’s say the overall effort is 5% – 10% of what it should be for completion. ;-)
Here’s a summary of the game logic that I collected from the manual and, well, playing the game some more. I wrote the object model abstract enough to support the following logic (and more) — theoretically since it’s all OO you could have multiple players. Or better yet, programmable enemies. (I felt the original enemies were a little too stupid)
Chip logic:
C F B Desc (param)
——————————–
4 4 B Feel: isTouching (object)
4 2 B Look: isVisible (object) – sets range meter
4 2 B Smell: isInRoom (object)
3 1 1 Keypress: isKeyPressed (keyValue)
3 5 1 move (movement)
2 2 1 Sing (number)
1 1 1 pushMoveStack (movement)
1 1 1 pushThingStack (object)
1 1 1 pushNumberStack (number)
1 1 1 Pop (MoveStack, ThingStack, NumberStack)
1 1 1 +: incr. value stack argument with wraparound
1 1 1 -: dec. value stack argument with wraparound
2 1 B isMoveStackEqual (movement)
2 1 B isObjectStackEqual (object)
2 1 B isValueStackEqual (number)
2 1 B isValueStackLessThan (number)
1 1 1 subpanel (A, B, C, D, E, F, G — MAIN PANEL ONLY)
1 1 1 loop: jump to start of current stack
1 1 1 boomerang: return to main panel — SUBPANELS ONLY
0 0 1 Junction: NOP
3 1 B Coinflip: FT (random)
1 7 1 Zap: anything in line of sight
1 5 1 Pick up
0 0 1 Start
(C)ycles required
(F)uel required
(B)ranch type (1=1-way B=boolean)
Object = Coffee, Pie, Electro-crab, Bouncer, Bomb, Oil, Disk, Wall, Door, Floor, TOP OF THING STACK (? mark)
Movement = L, R, F, B, TOP OF MOVE STACK (skate symbol)
Number = 0..7, TOP OF NUMBER STACK (beaker symbol), health meter, energy meter, range meter
Notes:
Cycles Start = depends on level
Health Start = 1400
Pick up wall = 50 damage
Pick up bouncer, crab = 150 damage
Bump bouncer, crab = 100 damage
Bump any object = 50 damage
Detonate bomb = death
Coffee, Pie = Add fuel
Disk, Oil = Points (depends on level)
Stacks can store 256 items, LIFO, with oldest overwritten in case of overflow
There are 8 program panels (Home, A-G), each is an 8×8 grid
No, 18 is no troll. I’m the real thing. I know we all wish there was more time for our projects. Although no excuse, mine’s been eaten up with my daughter, now 9, who has osteogenesis imperfecta –a brittle bone disorder (check out http://www.oif.org I’m on the board of directors.) I know Doug’s having his share of personal health problems, too.
My intentions for reviving ChipWits are legit. In that precious spare time, I’ve been working on multiple CWs in one environment, an environment editor, and, or course, the 3D models. Any of you 3D artists? You know, any help would be cool.
By the way, Olive, it’s Johnston, with a “t” So long, and thanks for all the fish.
Mike: do you have a Furby? If not, I suggest getting one. Not expensive and if you get two they can talk with one another. There’s a whole Furby sub-culture on the net it seems: adult geeks who play with gnome dolls. Cute. Look who’s talkin’ I just got one too to check it out.
I have actually recreated the chipwit “chip” character in milkshape and can export it into any format you need. I haven’t applied textures to it, but it looks like our favorite familiar robot protagonist. :-) Seems that the bouncer would be pretty trivial (it’s… uh… a beachball, right?) but my skills of 3D graphic modeling are too weak to model a crab — I’m more of a programmer or a musician than I am an artist. (so let me know if you need anything in the way of sound, music, or code.)
Mike, I’m very sorry to hear about your daughter. I really hope that she is able to get an equal shot at a happy life. Hang in there.
Sorry I’m so late to join the discussion.
Item 1: The above link to my blog entry on ChipWits (post #11) changed recently; it can now be found at http://thespoke.net/blogs/mr_i/archive/2005/06/13/96548.aspx
Item 2: Wow, both Mike Johnston and Doug Sharp in the same discussion! As others have stated above, you guys ARE legends! I know I’ve heard from Doug a few years ago, but I’ve been trying to find Mike for ages. Please drop me a line at indelicato-at-bghs-dot-org, I’d love to discuss some ChipWit stuff with you!
Great discussion. Amazing that both Doug and Mike found it and contributed.
I loved ChipWits back in its day. I’m looking forward to whatever Mike is working on, in hopes that it will be 1) fun and 2) a good educational toy for my son (almost 7).
Meanwhile, I found a great site that has an Apple IIgs emulator and an old disk image of ChipWits for the Apple II:
http://www.virtualapple.com/chipwitsdisk.html
Notwithstanding that the graphics are inferior to the Mac version and the rooms and programming panels smaller and cramped, it is still very fun to play. And you can speed up the computer to the point that it runs a whole mission in about 30 seconds!
Thanks Patrick, now if I just had an Apple II to run it on, or, even an old Mac. Alas, I got rid of all my old stuff a long time ago in a cross country move.
My dad got me Chipwits when it first came out and I was still a kid. I too have fond memories. Bombs, pies… and who can forget Caruso?
It was really futuristic for its time – I don’t remember people talking about OOP until quite a few years later, but that little game had a lot of the important principles.
I would definitely buy it again (theoretically for my kids, though I’m sure you’d catch me playing it too).
BTW, when I grew up I became… a programmer! Maybe it was Chipwits that led me on that path…
Thanks guys for a great game. I hope you get around to re-doing it.
:)
Kristin: fantastic. Thanks for commenting. I too hope they redo it although there was something just right about that little 512 pixel screen, black and white, and the low tech sound. Now it might be too slick.
I do know if they did it, I’d buy it. That’s two of us.
[...] gram called ‘ChipWits’ – a game that we played at UTS on the old Classic Macs. Naturally, I am not the only one. I’ve never been able to dig up a copy of that [...]
While working at 3M I was a member and later the president of the Apple Special Interest Group. When Chip Wits came out it excited all the members. We even had a Chip Wits contest to see who could build the most efficient robot. The creators of Chip Wits attended the meeting where the contestants ran their robots. So exciting it lives in every member’s memory.
No one has mentioned an emulator version of Chip Wits. Does one exist?
Bob: This makes me think I should have kept a 512K Mac around just to run ChipWits which I still have on disk somewhere.
I’ve not heard of an emulator for current Macs running OS X that will allow running a system and app that old but I’m not up on such things so maybe one actually exists.
What I’d prefer would be a new version of ChipWits. Of course, if there ever was one that would be the end of much of my free time; I remember spending much too much time playing with this thing including forcing “him” to get zapped just to see him shake and hear the great sound effects.
Were you in 3M in Canada or the US?
I am retired from 3M after a 35 year career. I worked in St.Paul Minnesota.
When I asked about an emulator I didn’t mention I wanted one for the Windows system. After retiring from 3M I worked for Aperture Inc. and needed to use a PC. I would willingly go back to a Mac if I didn’t have to buy all new software.
Bob: The Mac may meet you part way there – new models run on Intel Core Duo processors. And, all Macs come with a ton of great software, no extra cost.
Y.A.C.F.
Yet Another ChipWits Fan
I bought a Mac in the first months after their introduction [ugraded from my Trash-80 and Apple II+] and became enamored with ChipWits, AFAIAC, one of the best old Mac programs ever.
Mike [Johnson] … it’s probably not a good idea to recommend that people contribute to vaporware, but I’d be willing to make a Paypal donation to support the revival of ChipWits. Many classical painters and musicians were supported and allowed to work freely on their art. Perhaps those donating say $25 or so could get a free copy if and when it every comes out in MM.
First, let me say I’m a huge ChipWits fan! I got a Commodore 64 when I was 5 and some years later my 5th grade teacher turned me on to Chipwits. I was hooked immediately, and I largely credit this game for enhancing my early interest and understanding in programming, so a special thanks to Doug Sharp and to Mike Johnston!
Today, I’m a full-time software engineer and I develop games on my spare time.
I’d love to rewrite (or contribute to) a moden Java (perhaps OpenGL) remake of ChipWits, but I certainly don’t want to intrude on http://chipwits.com/. I’d rewrite ChipWits in a heartbeat (and keep to the original spirit, gameplay, etc.) if the authors gave me permission to do so. (Fingers Crossed). In particular, I’d love to write a pocket version of ChipWits to take with me on my Palm Pilot. I did a sloppy (but complete) Windows 3.11 version in a few weekends back in the early 90s which brought back some great memories!
I’d like even better to make the implementation open source so that people can continue to contribute and enjoy it for generations to come!
So Doug / Mike, if you’re still reading this forum, what do you say? Do I have your permission to start a ChipWits open source project?
Mark, I’m no one to comment, really (except that its my weblog so I guess I have a right) but I would think that the language you decide to do ChipWits in will determine its success in the open source community.
It would be great if rooms could be add-ons so that people could add environments but to do that would mean that those add-ons would have to update the chipwit brain so he had the right equipment to deal with a new room.
Also, the original ChipWits was done in MacForth on the Mac. I’d say that any future ChipWits had better run on the Mac or a significant number of people who were early users will be shut out.
Maybe ChipWits could be done on the web in some way so that people could use it from anywhere?
Just my non-engineering thoughts.
Richard – thus Java as my choice. Java games run on Linux (which is what I use), Windows, Mac, and practically every other modern OS. Plus it has recently become many a game developer’s language of choice since the availability of LWJGL (the Light-weight Java Gaming Library).
Games can be started from the web using WebStart. Plus it’s a wonderful language for open source projects with a strong developer community on sourceforge and java.net, for example. The game logic can also be ported easily to cell phones, palm pilots and the like (though the presentation layer would need to be rewritten to scale down to smaller screens).
Of course, I’m a bit biased since I used to work for Sun Microsystems :)
For an example of moden Java games done right, see http://puppygames.net/ or http://java.com/
But anyway, out of respect I wouldn’t dare even start the project without getting permission from the authors first.
I recently came across a trove of old mac game floppies at my parents’ house, including ChipWits, and set about trying to find a way to play them; I found out about this mac emulator that ought to run ChipWits, called Mini vMac: http://minivmac.sourceforge.net/
It takes disk images as input, I managed to find some system disk images around the net, and Mac Paint, but not much else, and pretty much none of my old mac disks work. If somebody that has a functioning copy of the ChipWits floppy that they wouldn’t mind converting to a disk image and sharing, I would absolutely thrilled.
Can’t you make an image out of the chipwits disk you found at your parents’ house?
Unfortunately the disk doesn’t work/can’t be read. Floppies just aren’t meant to last 20 years, I guess.
Darn, too bad. I just dug around and I can’t find them. I did find other early disks but not that one. Sorry.
Re: 40
Mark, the offer I made [re:39] for a Paypal donation to the author committed to rewrite Chipwits [with permission of the original authors] would apply to you too.
Please let us know here if you get permission from the original authors.
Wow… I mean, I know the internet is a big place, but I didn’t expect there to be so many people that remembered CW… You know, as a child, I must have spent weeks (cumulatively) in front of the computer tooling around with IBOL. I was never very good at it, but I’ve wondered in years since if I’d be any better at it now. Recently I came across an old Mac Plus at a garage sale, and bought it with the sole intention of finding and loading a copy of Chipwits. Sadly, no dice.
As a player of ADOM, I’m used to waiting years and years for things to get done (Mac version’s here, but where’s JADE?) so take your time, but please, please, oh please don’t abandon this, guys! I want to see my children playing CW some day!
I´ve the Chipwits working in a MacMini Intel with vmac.
I´s easy all that you need is in Internet.
Vmac, the 128K Mac Rom and you only need take the chipwits software, ake a image disk, not OS X img must be .dsk. System 1.1 and Finder 1.1g you can get it from Apple web, and it´s working.
I´ve the same mix of software as Mic in a MacBook Intel, but with minivMac, also work fine.
thanks Mic for your advise. ;)