July 24, 2008
6 chars ought to be enough for anyone.
Play 
This wildly popular game was based on a real pastime of the author (and also based on a real place).
Fittingly enough, the game’s name (X) led to the name of another activity (Y) (popular at some universities) that was directly derived from this game.
Which game (X), and what is the activity (Y) called?
Almost everyone got the name of the game. No one got the activity…
Mayukh, that is one awesome box! How in the world did you get your hands on a Kaypro?
Answer:
Colossal Cave Adventure, the world’s first interactive text adventure (and precursor to such games as Zork/Nethack/h2g2 and the like)
The game was named ADVENT because the PDP10 was limited to 6 character file names. Legend has it that to hide the game from sysadmins it was renamed ADVand then later to VAD as sysadmins got smarter.
ADVENT was based around a concept of exploring caves. This activity became popular in a modified form in many universities: students exploring abandoned buildings. People who did this were soon called VADders, named so from the game.
The activity Y is, hence, vadding, or “Roof and tunnel hacking” as people now call it.
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July 24th, 2008 at 10:32 pm, GMT +0000 ( 1216938734 )
William Crowther’s Colossal Cave Adventure or just Adventure
And I am guessing here, but the activity is multiple users playing a ‘text adventure’ or some other sort of role playing game combined with elements of a text adventure. An early second life of sorts?
July 24th, 2008 at 10:33 pm, GMT +0000 ( 1216938816 )
another shot — playing ‘Dungeons and Dragons’ ??
July 24th, 2008 at 10:40 pm, GMT +0000 ( 1216939240 )
Spelunking, the game is Colossal Cave Adventure.
July 24th, 2008 at 11:00 pm, GMT +0000 ( 1216940429 )
ADVENT
July 24th, 2008 at 11:38 pm, GMT +0000 ( 1216942692 )
Colossal Cave Adventure
July 24th, 2008 at 11:47 pm, GMT +0000 ( 1216943233 )
Colossal Cave Adventure / ADVENT – Interactive Text Adventure
July 25th, 2008 at 2:20 am, GMT +0000 ( 1216952454 )
colossal cave adventure is the name of the game..
the pastime is ADVENTing?
July 25th, 2008 at 2:46 am, GMT +0000 ( 1216953972 )
The game is ADVENT/Colossal Cave
I played this game in my age old 8 mb ram computer :)
No clue about the phrase….
July 25th, 2008 at 3:46 am, GMT +0000 ( 1216957592 )
Colossal cave adventure
July 25th, 2008 at 4:35 am, GMT +0000 ( 1216960523 )
ADVENT or Colossal cave adventure
July 25th, 2008 at 5:08 am, GMT +0000 ( 1216962504 )
X.Colossal Cave Adventure
Y.XYZZY ?
July 25th, 2008 at 5:39 am, GMT +0000 ( 1216964347 )
X-Colossal Cave Adventure
Y-Caving
July 25th, 2008 at 6:22 am, GMT +0000 ( 1216966924 )
X – Colossal Cave
Y – ARPANET
July 25th, 2008 at 7:34 am, GMT +0000 ( 1216971268 )
collosal cave adventure or advent and interactive fiction?
July 25th, 2008 at 8:31 am, GMT +0000 ( 1216974660 )
is this monkey island?
July 25th, 2008 at 9:39 am, GMT +0000 ( 1216978742 )
x- ADVENT
July 25th, 2008 at 10:14 am, GMT +0000 ( 1216980886 )
Adventure
July 25th, 2008 at 11:18 am, GMT +0000 ( 1216984692 )
The game is COLOSSAL CAVE ADVENTURE created by Will Crowther for his daughters n based on his exploration of a real Kentucky cave…The activity which resulted from this game was MUD , ie Multi User Dungeon/Domain/Dimension…
July 25th, 2008 at 1:33 pm, GMT +0000 ( 1216992805 )
X = ADVENTURE
Y = MUDding?? or Spelunking?
Oddly enough, I have a port of that game running on a really old computer:
http://www.mayukhbose.com/images/kaypro.jpg
July 25th, 2008 at 1:34 pm, GMT +0000 ( 1216992849 )
For the record, since the original OS only supported 6 char file names, the game’s name was shortened to ADVENT
July 25th, 2008 at 1:36 pm, GMT +0000 ( 1216992992 )
and I would like to change my above answer to MUDding :)
July 25th, 2008 at 3:54 pm, GMT +0000 ( 1217001296 )
X. Colossal Cave Adventure.
Y. Creating Virtual worlds ?