little computer people (13. 742)

Via MetaFilter, we are directed towards this rather incredible exhibit from the Internet Archive of early computer software that purports some aspect of artificial intelligence with the programme acting as task-masters, adversaries or interlocutors—illustrating the some of the first interactions between humans and machines. Not only does the curated collection feature text-based adventures (see more) with graphical interfaces, like the 1985 titular game (also branded for some markets and systems as House-on-a-Disk) considered the precursor to The Sims, multiple iterations of the Game of Life and interactive and a few franchise quests, each exhibit has detailed information on its play and provenance plus an emulator to (re)experience them—a few however have an appropriately vintage protocol to run the programme which, on a QWERTZ Mac keyboard—press Scroll Lock and then F2—was at a loss to puzzle out and would be nigh impossible on a Handy. Do poke around and let us know what you find.