The RAND Corporation’s wargame history led to a series of educational games

Many questions were asked in the computer laboratories of schools back in the 1970s. In particular, the games asked for many numbers. Typed-in numbers were the fuel needed to power the games — typically short programs written in BASIC — that filled the storage space on the minicomputers. There were no screens — only teletype machines, which sort of worked like typewriters except that the computers could type words on the page as well. You played turn-based strategy games like HamurabiThe computer would then print key information line-by-line:

HAMURABI, I BEG TO REPORT to YOU

IN YEAR 1, ONLY 0 PEOPLE STARTED, AND 5 CAME TO THE CITY.

POPULATION IS 100 NOW.

THE CITY NOW OWNS 1000 ACRES.

3 BUSHELS CANNOT BE HARNESTED IN ONE ACRE.

RATS TAKE 200 BUSHELS.

You now have 2800 buses in stock.

These questions were then asked one by one:

LAND TRADERY IS AVAILABLE AT 26 BUSHELS PER ACRE

HOW MUCH ACRES WOULD YOU LIKE TO BUY _

HOW MUCH BUSHELS WOULD YOU LIKE TO FEEDE YOUR PEOPLE WITH? _

WHAT PERCENTAGE OF ACRES DO IT TAKE TO PLANT SEED WITH? _

Once answered, the game’s simulator component would come into play, processing your inputs across a series of complex equations.​​ Then the game would advance one year, and the whole thing would start all over again — provided, of course, that you did not fail badly enough for your people to overthrow you.

The tech was still cutting-edge in 1970s schools computer labs, even though it seemed archaic. As it turned out the roots of these games as well as the programs and systems that were used to play them could be traced back to the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica (California). The question-and-answer game was originally created to simulate nuclear war.

Sponsored mainly by the newly formed Air Force, RAND’s mandate was almost absurdly broad: “To further and promote scientific, educational, and charitable purposes, all for the public welfare and security of the United States of America.”

In the days leading up to the Cold War, the RAND Corporation (originally called Project RAND) was one of several think tanks that the United States military and government created. Due to the critical role of engineering and science in the Second World War’s victory, every government recognized the need for such work to be continued as new battle lines were drawn. RAND, contrary to its name was a non-profit organization. RAND’s main product is research reports. These are a combination of all kinds of social and scientific studies. RAND officially reported to the Air Force, but it was also encouraged to publish and share its work for the “public good.”

RAND, despite having a seemingly endless mandate, is probably best-known for its wargames. Coincidentally wargaming emerged in early Cold War years as an amateur hobby. This may have played some role in their merging into the digital age. But there was one major difference. RAND did not reenact historical battles like Gettysburg or Midway, which hobbyists loved to do. Instead, it focused on future conflicts. Many of RAND’s games featured the latest innovations in conventional warfare, including the atomic bomb.

RAND has been subject to a lot criticism over its seemingly nonchalant approach toward nuclear war throughout these years. One of its chief strategists, Herman Kahn, would go on to serve as the inspiration for Dr. Strangelove in Stanley Kubrick’s classic film of the same name. One could argue that RAND was merely absorbing the thoughts of military leaders from the post-World War II period. Popular heroes like Douglas MacArthur suggested that nuclear bombs should be dropped on China in order to promote American interests in Korea. Regardless, the antiwar movement of the late 1960s had yet to emerge in RAND’s early years, and Kahn and others saw no apparent reason to imagine how a nuclear conflict might unfold.

RAND’s wargames often differed quite substantially from our general understanding of the genre. Rather than asking players to move pieces on a board, RAND’s games often took the form of complex logistics simulations run by a central computer. Consider the following example: STOPStrategic operations is shorthand for STROP. Despite the bland name of STROP, it was a simulator for nuclear warfare. According to its manual, it was up to players to “make decisions concerning R & D expenditures, weapons procurement, and offensive and defensive weapons targeting,” all of which supported ongoing nuclear exchanges.

No maps were available STOPThere is no way to get around, and there are not any parts. Instead, questions were asked, which led to numbers like dollar amounts or force commitments. All of these were called “decisions,” a term that would carry forward into the medium. Questions were asked in exactly the same fashion as they are in HamurabiThe flavor text is removed

BLUE STROP EXERCISE

R andD ALLOCATION

Multiples R and Development = _____

AMSA R-D = _

R and D = ABM

Procurement: Fighters = _

Procurement for Local Defense =

Procurement: ABMs =

Procurement: Shelters = _

A computer — usually an IBM variant, though RAND did once build its own machine — would process these decisions, churning these numbers through a complex game engine and outputting the results. Players would then enter most of their information again and the game continued.

Computers are an important tool to operate games such as STOP, and as the machines started to move into professional and educational institutions, RAND’s model of mathematical gaming spread with them. RAND was, of course, the catalyst, as it fulfilled its public good mandate. In the late 1950s, it connected with a management training organization called the American Management Association to create a game that the group could use in its work — essentially, a business version of a wargame.

This is clearly stated in the AMA manual. While extolling the virtues of military wargaming, it asks, “Why, then, shouldn’t business men have the same opportunity? […] Why not a business ‘war game’ […] ?” The wargame that they had in mind was not the back-and-forth board type. In accordance with the STOPThey created an extremely tuned logistic simulation using the model.

Each value that players decided on was referred to as a “decision” — hence the name of the game: Simulating Top Management Decisions. This included budgeting to create and market a product. For the duration of one quarter, money was set aside for research, production, marketing, and distribution. It was also decided the price of product.

This was possible because the mainframe IBM 650, which is capable of processing and accepting results, was key. The data was then sent to the keypunch operator who made the punched cards, and fed it into the machine. After the simulation was completed, results were printed and sent out to players. Each quarter would progress to the next, with players adapting and adjusting their inputs.

TMDSThe prime driver of a management game mania throughout America was he. In 1961, there were more than 100 of these games. By the 1980s, thousands of American companies had integrated games into their training. In the beginning, the number of business decisions that one can make was a hallmark of a successful game of business, particularly in those early years. Carnegie Tech Management gameThe game ‘, which was partly designed by William Dill (a legend in the field), featured approximately 300 decisions. All these games took advantage of the expanding power of both mainframes and later minicomputers.

The gospel of computerized decisions games has moved from business to education. It began with an IBM-sponsored experiment in Westchester County. Citing Dill and others in the field as influences, three “computer-based economic games” were produced for sixth grade students. The first of these is known as Sumerian GameInspiration for this article came from Hamurabi. How did it happen? Hamurabi The context, which was both historical and purely fictional was what made it different. The game’s intended audience was children, and therefore had limited decisions.

These interactive games didn’t reach all public schools in a short time because they were so rare at the beginning. Digital Equipment Corporation played a key role in changing this. They sold minicomputers for the PDP directly to schools. The FOCAL was initially the programming language of choice. However, it was actually built on a RAND product. When that language began to take off, the decision was made to switch over from FOCAL to BASIC.

RAND Corporation’s fortunes changed in 1970s, at a time when BASIC games were a common commodity in schools computer labs. RAND was one of many military-funded entities that became unpopular after the Vietnam War. The Mansfield Amendment, passed in 1969, largely ended the military’s role in cutting-edge computer science research. The future of the computer was personal, but this PC revolution would carry RAND’s work forward, inspiring future refinements to what would become the turn-based strategy genre. Computer lab children would be able to play or improve these games and inherit the work of business and military minds.

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