Volcano! Mount Saint Helens Meed Software / Home Learning Software 1992

On Sunday, May 18, 1980, a catastrophic eruption of St. Helens volcano occurred in the southwestern state of Washington, which caused massive destruction and claimed the lives of more than fifty people. Over the next few years, this tragic event was captured in literature, in cinema, and even in symphonic music - and then came the turn of computer games. Somewhere already in 1982, when the software was distributed mostly in paper form, a simulator of the same eruption adapted by Pete Cherwinski for the Tandy platform in Basic language appeared in one of the magazines. Three to four years later, another enthusiast, Ed Greeney from New Jersey, presented version number 7.0 which dates back to February 1992 - and became available to the general public exactly on the day of the fortieth anniversary of the largest volcano eruption in the history of the United States thanks to the courtesy of the famous collector and YouTube star Clint Basinger. A computerized story about St. Helens was distributed formally in the status of rather Shareware, but it was completely free, because it had no restrictions on use. "Volcano!"- as one of the distributors called this little thing, a certain Home Learning Software from North Carolina, - or "Mount Saint Helens: Review Program and Survival Simulation", - as it is called on the screen saver screen, - consists of three different parts, which you should get acquainted with strictly sequentially. The first component is called “Volcanoes” and is a short - on several screens - mini-textbook with information about the nature, types and classes of these geological formations. After a little enlightenment in this area of ​​earth science, we move on to the history section of Mount St. Helens itself; detailed textual material is available by clicking on the icon in the lower left corner of the start screen of this episode (although in modern conditions it is just not more convenient to read the Info.txt text file using system tools), while the arrow on the lower right will indicate the path to a much more visual and entertaining things. After such a thorough acquaintance with the hero of the day, backed up by a slide show of seven consecutive photographs of the eruption, we find ourselves in the most remarkable - and actually “gaming” - section “Mount Saint Helens”. Namely, a text simulator of survival in the conditions of the awakening of the volcano, compiled from the memoirs of about three hundred witnesses, caught near the mountain and, as a result, safely saved. There are no illustrations in sight here, and everything that happens will remind you of the Interactive Fiction genre. Although typing manually will not be necessary either: we will be given a brief description of the situation - and several options for the available actions to choose from, only one of which will be correct, while all the others will lead to immediate death (and will force the entire adventure to pass from the very beginning). For example, after a small earthquake and an explosion of the upper part of the mountain, when a dense cloud of black smoke begins to move in our direction, you can either take pictures or try to climb higher.
Screenshots
Floppy Image ISO Demo 1.4MB (uploaded by Internet Archive Software Collection)
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