Peter Langston (born 1946) is a computer programmer who wrote and distributed for free several games for
Unix
Unix (, ; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multi-user computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, a ...
systems in the 1970s, including one of the earliest text adventure video games ''
Wander
In electronics and telecommunications, jitter is the deviation from true periodicity of a presumably periodic signal, often in relation to a reference clock signal. In clock recovery applications it is called timing jitter. Jitter is a significa ...
'', the original version of ''
Empire
An empire is a political unit made up of several territories, military outpost (military), outposts, and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a hegemony, dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the ...
'' and the program "Oracle" upon which the later net-wide
Oracle
An oracle is a person or thing considered to provide insight, wise counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. If done through occultic means, it is a form of divination.
Descript ...
was modeled. He is also an experienced jazz, rock, and folk musician. He wrote his first game in 1965.
Musicians from Seattle
American folk guitarists
American male guitarists
American rock guitarists
Living people
1946 births
Guitarists from Washington (state)
Lucasfilm people
20th-century American guitarists
Place of birth missing (living people)
Date of birth missing (living people)
In 1982, he was hired as the first employee by the Computer Division of
Lucasfilm
Lucasfilm Ltd. LLC is an American film and television production company founded by filmmaker George Lucas in December 10, 1971 in San Rafael, California, and later moved to San Francisco in 2005. It is best known for creating and producing th ...
to start
Lucasfilm Games
Lucasfilm Games (known as LucasArts between 1990 and 2021) is an American video game licensor, former video game developer and publisher, and a subsidiary of Lucasfilm. It was founded in May 1982 by George Lucas as a video game development grou ...
. He hired the programming and design teams and wrote the music for and contributed to the game design of Lucasfilm Games' first two releases, ''
Ballblazer
''Ballblazer'' is a futuristic sports game created by Lucasfilm Games and published in 1985 by Epyx. Along with ''Rescue on Fractalus!'', it was one of the initial pair of releases from Lucasfilm Games, ''Ballblazer'' was developed and first pub ...
'' and ''
Rescue on Fractalus!
''Rescue On Fractalus!'' is a space combat simulator video game created by Lucasfilm Games. It was originally released in 1985 for the Atari 8-bit computers and Atari 5200 console, then ported to the Apple II, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, T ...
''. In fact, for ''Ballblazer'', Langston created an
algorithmic composition
Algorithmic composition is the technique of using algorithms to create music.
Algorithms (or, at the very least, formal sets of rules) have been used to compose music for centuries; the procedures used to plot voice-leading in Western counterpo ...
system, which allowed the game to improvise music (from an initial set of musical snippets contributed by famous musicians) based on what is happening in the game. Langston later left Lucasfilm Games for
Bellcore
iconectiv supplies communications providers with network planning and management services. The company’s cloud-based information as a service network and operations management and numbering solutions span trusted communications, digital identi ...
(now Telcordia Technologies). Langston retired in 1991, and is now consulting and running adult music camps.
References
External links
Peter Langston's Home Page*
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