This repository contains raw disk images from the archives of the original author of ChipWits, Doug Sharp. The disks contain the original FORTH source code for ChipWits, as well as other related files.
For the 40th anniversary of ChipWits (which was released the same year as the original Macintosh), ChipWits, Inc. released the source code for the game to the public. The team hopes that this will inspire a new generation of programmers to learn about FORTH and how many games were programmed in the 1980s.
The team did some initial work to image the disks using a combination of a PowerBook G3, a GreaseWeazel and a 1541 Commodore 64 disk drive. Most of the data was successfully recovered except for some bad sectors on a few disks. You can read about the original restoration efforts.
After our open source announcement, our restoration efforts were joined by a renowned expert in disk imaging, John K. Morris, creator of the AppleSauce Floppy Driver Controller. John was able to recover the remaining bad sectors and create a complete set of disk images, aside from a single bad sector on a single disk! John also took a photograph of each disk. This project owes John a debt of gratitude for his expertise and generous volunteer efforts.
You can find the disk images and photographs in the disks/ subdirectory of the mac/,
c64/ and appleii/ directories.
From the manual:
ChipWits is a game where you program robots to explore rooms and mazes filled with different kinds of objects. As you learn how to make the robots "think" for themselves, you will sharpen your problem-solving skills and learn some of the basic principles of computer programming.
ChipWits was originally released in 1984 for the Macintosh, and later ported to the Commodore 64 and Apple II in 1985. It was created by Doug Sharp and Mike Johnston, and has inspired many programmers and game developers over the years.
FORTH is a stack-based programming language that was popular in the 1970s and 1980s, especially for 8-bit microcomputers and embedded systems. It is known for its simplicity and flexibility, and is still used in some applications today.
You can find out more about FORTH here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forth_(programming_language)
There are two editions of ChipWits in this repository:
The source code for the Apple II edition has not yet been recovered.
This repository also contains scans of the original manuals and box art for ChipWits:
ChipWits is currently being rebooted by ChipWits, Inc., a game company led by Doug Sharp and Mark Roth. You can find out more about the reboot and play the free demo here:
Wishlist on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2330720/ChipWits/?utm_source=github
Website: https://chipwits.com/
This repository does not have any assets related to the remake.
The Mac, Commodore 64 and Apple II versions of the game can all be played in emulation on the ChipWits website: https://chipwits.com/retro
At the moment, the Commodore 64 edition is runnable. The Mac edition should be runnable as well but has not yet been demonstrated to work.
We're looking for help to recover more of the source code and assets for ChipWits. If you have expertise in FORTH, we would love to hear from you. Please join the ChipWits Discord or email us at github@chipwits.com to get in touch.
All the work in this repository is licensed as follows:
Shield:
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
