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  • Hacker News
  • The edit distance form work to zork is 1.

    For this, and because of tab completions (perhaps tab completions post-date zork, but nonetheless) I find the work:zork story compelling. I have used the first letter is replaced by "z" trick many times (z-tab, done!), and that pre-dated any contemplation of the zork mystery.

    by etep
  • Also, W and Z are switched in the AZERTY keyboard. So maybe someone mistyped work on the wrong layout??
    by ashenke
  • Ah, but there are plenty of folk etymologies which, although they make a lot of logical sense, aren't true.
    by big85
  • After a month I bring a good news.
    by dpola
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zork&diff=prev&ol...

    might be a more informative link to the specific change, btw.

    by quuxplusone
  • https://www.gricer.com/tmrc/dictionary1959.html

    ---The words defined in this dictionary are the property of the Tech

       Model Railroad Club of M. I. T. and all rights to use and define

   these words are strictly reserved.---
    ZORCH: to attack with an inverse heat sink.

    Another of David Sawyer's sound effects, which I reinterpreted as a colorful variant of "scorch."

    by empressplay
  • According to Wikipedia, all of the original programmers are still alive.

    Wouldn't it be possible to contact at least 1 of them, and settle the question? Story says author tried... Try again, ask around.

    Story & comments read a lot like speculation. Why settle for that when original source(s) still exist?

    by RetroTechie
  • The original programmers might settle the question, but Wikipedia wouldn't allow the answer.

    Something similar happened a decade ago with the page for the Unix command `cron` — it contained a made-up backronym (‘command run on …’) that had once appeared in print somewhere, and the guardians of Wikipedia zealously rejected correction (it's from ‘chrono‐’) from the original author, Brian Kernighan.

    by kps
  • This article has some research into possible origins of the name: https://nickm.com/post/2010/01/a-note-on-the-word-zork/comme...
    by kristianp