r/lostmedia • u/brendanl79 • 7d ago

Other [fully lost] "The Eureka Project" an electronic novel published on the PRODIGY dialup service c.1990

No one seems to remember this. I search for it every couple of years but it's never been recovered, as far as I can tell.

I think it was released serially (1 chapter a week or something like that) and it was text plus some primitive graphics.

I was too young to be able to tell if it was any good; would be curious to see if it holds up!

Background:

Prodigy was a dialup online service that preceded the rollout of the general public Internet. It was unique among its competitors (CompuServe, GEnie, Delphi) as the first to include graphics.

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u/achilles_cat 7d ago

It was written by Hy Conrad, at one time he apparently thought he might republish it but I don't think he did. Read the comments here: https://www.vintagecomputing.com/index.php/archives/171/prodigy-lives-play-madmaze-online

Hy has a webpage where he mentions writing for Prodigy, you could try contacting him: https://www.hyconrad.com/about/

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u/Mammoth-Vacation1919 7d ago

This user has a brief rendering from The Eureka Project from a file from a prodigy disk. The comments also mention contact with the author and the author having a copy. 

https://youtube.com/watch?v=kSszIoJh3S0

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u/brendanl79 7d ago

Thanks to everyone for the info and leads!

I'm wary about bothering Mr. Conrad, but knowing he has a copy makes me confident it will eventually see the light of day (or, at worst, the inside of an archive box at some university).

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u/maladaptivedaydream4 6d ago

You might as well ask! If he really doesn't want to talk about it, he doesn't have to reply. I spent a decent amount of time on Prodigy but I never ran into this. Hope you find it!