November 7, 2025
Vintage Wordle, fresh comment wars
1973 Implementation of Wordle Was Published by Dec (2022)
Wordle’s 1973 grandpa resurfaces — cue fights over Mastermind and what “Dec” means
TLDR: A Wordle-style game called WORD from 1973, published by computer maker DEC, has resurfaced and is playable online. Comments erupted over whether Wordle really descends from Mastermind, plus confusion about “(2022)” in the title and DEC vs December — a fun reminder that hit games have deep, quirky roots.
Move over, viral Wordle — the internet just found its grandpa from 1973. A text-based game called WORD, published by DEC (the company, not the month) in the book BASIC Computer Games, plays almost exactly like Wordle, but with only 12 words and no dictionary check. Written by high-schooler Charles Reid and released to the public domain by editor David Ahl, it’s pure retro charm you can play in your browser. And yes, it tells you which letters are right and in the right spot, just like today’s daily obsession.
The comments instantly turned into a history throwdown. One camp shouted, “Wordle is just Mastermind with letters!” and dropped links. Others clapped back with older word puzzlers like Jotto and a whole family of ’70s “guessing games” (Bagels, Hurkle, Snark) that paved the way. There’s also title chaos: the “(2022)” tag confused readers, and someone had to clarify DEC means the company. Meanwhile, practical heroes dropped a playable link and joked about “Grandpa Wordle” having only 12 words — speedrun, anyone? The vibe: nostalgic discovery meets pedantic nitpicking, with memes about vintage mode and arguments over who invented your daily five-letter fix. History nerds are eating this up.
Key Points
- •WORD, a 1973 game published by Digital Equipment Corporation, predates Wordle and uses similar letter presence and position feedback via a text interface.
- •WORD was written by Charles Reid and later included in Creative Computing’s BASIC Computer Games; David Ahl has placed these programs in the public domain.
- •WORD differs from Wordle by not validating guesses against a dictionary and by having only 12 possible target words due to memory constraints.
- •Early guessing games like GUESS (by Walt Koetke) in FOCAL influenced later BASIC games; Dennis Allison’s 1975 ‘Build Your Own BASIC’ emphasized such games.
- •Multiple guessing game variants (HI-LO, NUMBER, STARS, TRAP, BAGELS, LETTER, HURKLE, MUGWMP, TARGET) demonstrate the genre’s evolution in educational and hobbyist contexts.