Lunar Lander (1969)

1969 · Simulation · PDP-8

Overview

Lunar Lander (1969) is Jim Storer's text game about landing on the Moon, written at Lexington High School, which grew into a whole genre.

Deep Dive

Each turn stands for ten seconds of descent. The player reads the lander's speed and remaining fuel and types how much thrust to burn, trying to touch down gently before the fuel runs out. There are no graphics: the game reports its numbers as text.

Developer Story

Storer wrote it in the autumn of 1969 in FOCAL for a DEC PDP-8. It spread under many names, and the genre it started came to be called "lunar lander".

Did You Know?

David H. Ahl converted it to BASIC for his 1973 book 101 BASIC Computer Games, and called it "by far and away the single most popular computer game" of its time.
In 1973 DEC commissioned Jack Burness's graphical Moonlander, controlled with a light pen.
Atari's 1979 arcade Lunar Lander let players insert more coins to buy extra fuel.