Wizard of Id will teach children

Press, 5 August 1983, Page 15

Wizard of Id will teach children

NZPA-Reuter New York

A series of games and educational tools will soon introduce the comic-strip characters of “8.C.” and the “Wizard of Id” to the homecomputer market, two software companies have announced.

The companies, Sierra On-Line of Coarsegold, of California, and the Sydney Development Corporation of Vancouver, British Columbia, have entered into a multi-million dollar licensing arrangement with Johnny Hart, the creater of the strips, which are featured in hundreds of newspapers in the United States and Canada and in 40 other countries.

Sydney Development, a public company whose shares are traded on the Vancouver and Toronto stock exchanges, designed the programmes which feature Thor, Sir Rodney, Anteater, and other wellknown characters from the strips.

Mr Ken Williams, president of Sierra On-Line, emphasised the educational aspects of the series, saying programmes will soon be available that will help youngsters learn to spell, type, name geographic sites and do maths.

In a sample programme shown to the press, the Wizard of Id gets burned by a dragon each time a word is mistyped on a computer keyboard. The wizard magically slays the dragon if a series of words is correctly typed. “In a few years a 10-year-old who can’t use a computer keyboard is going to be in a lot of trouble,” Mr Williams said.

In another programme, Sir Rodney travels round the world, but only if the child operating the computer can name the countries being visited. Mr Williams said the programmes will sell for about $46 each.