GET LAMP: The Text Adventure Documentary
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN recommends it to anyone interested in text adventures, Infocom, MUDs and early computer gaming history.
What it is
Jason Scott discusses making his documentary GET LAMP at a Google Tech Talk and screens part of the film. It covers the history of text adventures and interactive fiction, with interviews of Infocom developers and others.
Recommended by 5 HN commenters across 5 different months, 2014 to 2026.
What Hacker News said
Recommends grimgrin · 2014-12 · on “First Infocom Z-machine implemented in hardware”
Many Infocom employees are present in the documentary Get Lamp: [this video] Recommended if text games are of interest to you.
Recommends cpeterso · 2018-12 · on “Great Adventure-Game Puzzles”
If you like text adventure games, check out Jason Scott's documentary GET LAMP about the history of text adventure games, including interviews with some Infocom developers: [this video] [LINK]
Recommends freediver · 2019-03 · on “Iconoclast: a Gothic/Cyberpunk MUD RPG, Online Since 1996”
Oh the MUDs! Props to Forest’s edge and TempusMUD. Text is the ultimate medium because it directly connects with our imagination. I remember jumping out of my chair after reading a line of text on my screen. Recommend watching “Get lamp” documentary to fans of MUDs, text adventures and those born after: [this video]
Recommends petercooper · 2022-06 · on “Enjoyed Jason Scott’s BBS documentary”
He also did a documentary about text adventure games called "GET LAMP" which I enjoyed a lot: [this video]
Recommends anonymousiam · 2026-01 · on “Adventure 751 (1980)”
Jason Scott (of textfiles.com) made a great documentary video about the Adeventure game. I picked up a copy at DEFCON about 15 years ago. [LINK] [this video]
Cites jamesk_au · 2015-11 · on “Get Lamp”
You can watch the non-interactive version of the documentary with some commentary by its maker in this Google Tech Talk: [this video]
Cites mgkimsal · 2017-04 · on “A History of Interactive Fiction (2006)”
Related: there's a few versions of "get lamp" documentary online ( [this video] ) or you can get the movie directly from getlamp.com. These histories (the maher link above, the getlamp doc, etc) bring back a lot of great memories. EDIT: the youtube link above looks like it's actually the getlamp movie being shown at a google event, with an audience (audience sounds in there now and then).
Cites Eremotherium · 2020-04 · on “textfiles.com”
He also gave us the brilliant BBS: The Documentary [LINK] GET LAMP: The Text Adventure Documentary (shot in 1080p) [this video] and (apart from his many talks) his podcast "Jason Scott talks his way out of it" which is just gem after gem of documented tech ephemera. [LINK] It's baffingly hard to quantify how many people he (and all the other great people at the Internet Archive) has affected with his bullheaded conservation efforts.