In 1984, William Chamberlain published a book called "The Policeman's Beard is Half Constructed" (Warner Books, NY. 0-446-38051-2, paper $9.95). The introduction claims: "With the exception of this introduction, the writing in this book was all done by computer."

The authorship is attributed to RACTER, originally "written in compiled BASIC on a Z80 with 64k of RAM."

Racter strings together words according to "syntax directives", and the illusion of coherence is increased by repeated re-use of text variables. This gives the appearance that Racter can actually have a conversation with the user that makes some sense, unlike Eliza, which just spits back what you type at it. Of course, such a program has not been written to perfection yet, but Racter comes somewhat close.

Since some of the syntactical mistakes that Racter tends to make cannot be avoided, the decision was made to market the game in a humorous vein, which the marketing department at Mindscape dubbed "tongue-in-chip software" and "artificial insanity".

Screenshots

Credits (DOS version)

Programming

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 76% (based on 2 ratings)

Players

Average score: 1.8 out of 5 (based on 5 ratings with 1 reviews)

Interesting and humourous, but nothing more.

The Good
Well, it's cute and everything... has an interesting sense of humour and is quite insane for that matter :-) The text parser is quite good and the responses are very coherent. The program also uses previous items you've mentioned (see screenshots), so it's also rather interesting.

The Bad
Well, it's the same every time... some of the vocabulary is quite pointless and some of the things the computer say is utter B.S. The computer keeps asking the same annoying questions and some portions of the text parser are not nearly as good as others, for example:

Computer: What is your last name? Me: Why do you ask? Computer: So your last name is Why? Me: No. Computer: What is your last name?

And it goes on and on. Quite annoying really, but the program is otherwise entertaining, but probably not for too long.

The Bottom Line
An interesting piece of software you have to experience to fully appreciate.

DOS · by Tomer Gabel (4539) · 1999

Trivia

Racter was published under Mindscape's "ALERT: Software that challenges the mind." advertising moniker.

The packaging, a shrinkwrapped plastic binder (and not a box, which was fairly common back then), contained a (fake) brochure describing the Institute of Artificial Insanity, offering "flexible degree-granting programs and vinyl tubing to students." The Institute also prided itself on its "excellence, as evidenced by its complete catalog of curricular and sportswear items, its students, and its loss of faculties." It goes on to list the curriculum and other moderly humorous details about the Institute.

Along that vein, a second piece of material was included in the Racter package: An order form to order tee-shirts and sweatshirts with the Institute's seal on it. This latter order form wasn't a joke--it was a legitimate offer from Mindscape. The pricing was as follows:

T-Shirt: $8.00

Sweatshirt: $18.00

T-Shirt (Racter logo): $8.00

Bumper Sticker: $1.50

Decal for car window: $1.50

These items are extremely rare and are of high personal value to classic software collectors.

Analytics

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Related Sites +

The Racter FAQ
One of the locations of the Racter FAQ, a portion of The Robot Wisdom Pages (although was originally reprinted in the August 1993 issue of The Journal of Computer Game Design after floating around comp.ai.* a while)

Identifiers +

MobyGames ID: 563

Contribute

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Trixter.

Apple II added by Lars Norpchen. Macintosh added by Kabushi. Amiga added by Terok Nor.

Additional contributors: formercontrib.

Game added December 12, 1999. Last modified August 14, 2023.