Columns for HP-UX (found HP-UX port of Match-3 puzzle game; 1989)

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ColumnsHPUX1.jpg

The first screenshot of the game, 35 years after its release.

Status: Found

Information

Columns is a match-three puzzle video game first developed in 1989 by Jay Geertsen. The first version was made for the HP-UX and later ported to Atari ST, Macintosh, Windows 3.x and DOS. In 1990, Sega bought the rights and created a series of games that ported to several consoles. Columns was the answer for a puzzle game exclusive to Sega after they lost the rights to publish Tetris. [1]

The HP-UX version of Columns, under version 9.x, is a port from a closed-source operating system (you have to pay for a license). Due to the lack of publicity, this game was not well known and cited a few times.[1] [2] [3][4]

Background

The game itself is pre-installed in HP-UX (HP Unix) version 9.x, released in 1990. It was made available for HP 9000 Series of Workstations, computers designed for technical applications. A book cited this game on pages 405 & 406 of 452 in a book titled "Using the X Window System", released in August of 1992. It is a book system administrator running the X Window System, X11. The book itself does not mention how to the desktop environment, Visual User Environment (VUE). [5]

Availability

The game's port was being researched as early as 2020 by a Twitter/X Username @trevgauntletneu. They could not get to it due to the lack of the Operating System's availability and their experience with Linux and Unix. On May 1st, 2024, @trevgauntletneu found an emulated version of HP-UX version 9.1 running on MAME. [6]They managed to get HP-UX running on MAME version 0.256 after 8 hours of installation. On May 2nd past midnight, they made an announcement of their success and posted a screenshot and a video of the game in action. On May 3rd, 2024, they uploaded their HP-UX build for Linux Ubuntu 22.04 LTS and Windows 10 versions on archive.org. Making this the first time the public will play the game, 35 years after it was first published. [7][8][9]The MacOS Silicon build was made on May 18, 2024. [10]

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 https://segaretro.org/Columns#Development
  2. ↑ https://www.pressreader.com/uk/retro-gamer/20190711/281599537055264
  3. ↑ https://moegamer.net/all-games/columns/
  4. ↑ https://www.giantbomb.com/columns/3030-5487/
  5. ↑ https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_hp9000hpuxheXWindowSystemAug92_17150035
  6. ↑ https://archive.org/details/HPUX9MAME
  7. ↑ https://archive.org/details/hp-9k-370-ubuntu
  8. ↑ https://archive.org/details/hp-9k-370-windows
  9. ↑ https://archive.org/editxml/qemu-hp-ux-windows
  10. ↑ https://archive.org/details/qemu-silicon

External Links

References

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