He said that at this point, he is rarely ever reminded of the crime game he masterminded-only about once every few years. These days Dell helps operate Mutations Ltd., a business productivity software programming and consultancy company he cofounded in 2016. A simple search on Twitter or Reddit for "drug wars" and "TI-82" will produce ample evidence that the game still has a cult following. There are also several variations of the game available in the Apple App Store. Dope Wars Classic, a rendition of Drug Wars with a larger variety of drugs to sell, has 17,484 reviews at the Google Store. “I couldn’t believe that people would still be doing that,” said Dell.Įven today, if they are not still playing the game, there are a lot of people that at least fondly remember it. It was around this time, the mid-1990s, when Dell said his younger brother showed him people were still rewriting and sharing Drug Wars online. But from there it spread to schools around the country,” said Maier. “I was a little upset that he did all that without my permission. Maier was a mechanical engineering student at Georgia Tech when he learned that one of his former high school classmates had tweaked his original program, added his own name to it, and uploaded it to one of the primitive file-sharing sites that existed in the late 1990s. “I ported a few other things and even made a few games of my own, but none became viral sensations.” “All credit should go to the original programmer for conceiving the original brilliant game design in the DOS version,” said Maier, referencing Dell. “I knew it was a hit when I walked by the math classroom and saw the teacher playing it alone on the contraption that displayed the calculator screen up on the overhead projector,” said Maier, in an email. From there it spread among his friends, and then throughout the whole school. Maier, then a high school sophomore, shared the game with his friends using a homemade cable that allowed him to connect his graphing calculator to his computer. Jonathan Maier rewrote Drug Wars on his graphing calculator in 1993. It was also adapted to early Windows editions, but this was in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when computers were often reserved for the wealthy and/or nerdy.ĭrug Wars truly went viral (at a time before that word was used to describe anything but pathogens) when it appeared on a TI-82 graphing calculator-the same device that could be found in any high school advanced math class throughout the 1990s and 2000s. Non-registered users can still play for the more popular 30 and 90 day periods.Dell would later rewrite the game in DOS and upload it to a bulletin board system (BBS), which was how computer users in the 1980s communicated, shared files, or played games online.Īfter high school, Dell forgot about the game and enrolled in the US Naval Academy, studying computer science as he began a military career.ĭrug Wars continued to evolve as it was reprogrammed into an actual BBS game. Users who pay the 5 dollar registration fee will be able to compete in 15 and 60 day modes. Get enough cash, and you'll have the opportunity to purchase a gun or an overcoat with extra pockets. You'll want to pay off your debt early, as the interest grows quickly, and then see how much of a profit you can make before the end of the month (game time), when the game ends. You must travel among the city's six neighborhoods, trying to buy and sell a changing variety of drugs. Once you choose your city, you start with $2,000 in your trenchcoat and $5,500 in debt. DopeWars gives you a choice of making your mark in one of five cities: New York, Los Angeles, London, Derby, and Sydney. In DopeWars, you must make your money by buying and selling a variety of drugs, while avoiding various hazards, such as cops and muggers. DopeWars for the Mac is based on the popular '80s game, Dope Wars (DOS), which itself is based on the original game, Drug Wars.
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