Rare original Ultima game published for the Apple II platform by California Pacific Computers in 1981, complete in its original packaging with colorful 8.5 x 11 'cover art' page, Ultima playbook, and Ultima player reference card. The original bag retains its $39.95 retail price tag from "Computerland." In fine to very fine condition, with a bit of creasing to the 'cover art' sheet. This was the very first release of Ultima, one of the first definitive commercial computer RPGs. The game is considered to represent an important and influential turning point for the development of the RPG genre, and is recognized as the first open-world computer game.
Created by Richard Garriott—the son of NASA astronaut Owen Garriott—under the pseudonym Lord British, primarily coding it in the bedroom of his parents house in Houston, Texas. Garriott, along with his friend and collaborator Ken Arnold, essentially created the technique of 'tile graphics' for Ultima. They made the graphics by tracing their hand-drawn pictures on graph paper, changing the graphs to hexadecimal data, and typing them into the computer. The game sold 20,000 copies in its first year, and went on to sell 50,000 copies. It would later be re-coded and ported to other platforms, including Atari, Commodore, and MS-DOS computers. Several sequels were introduced within the Ultima series, and by 1997 over two million Ultima games had been sold.
In October, 2008, Garriott became the first space traveler from the United States to have a parent who was also a space traveler. Garriott flew aboard the Soyuz TMA-13 mission to the International Space Station as a private astronaut, returning aboard Soyuz TMA-12. During his ISS flight, he filmed a science fiction movie Apogee of Fear.
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