A few notes about NMR1 and NMR2
(4/27/2019)
I was amazed a few days ago when I found a copy of my “NMR2” game online at IFDB, and also at archive.com.   The posted files are not actually my originals.  It would appear that the source files posted by IFDB have been processed by a helper program that automatically added comments.  They may actually be a de-compilation of the compiled “run” version (probably using an AGT companion program called “Pretty”), I’m not sure.  Also, the AGT compile and run programs are missing from the archive posted online, which means that you would separately need to find a copy of AGT before you could try to run the game.   Not difficult at IFDB, but not easy if the posted files show up somewhere else!
As a result of seeing the game online, I started digging to see if I could find my original files.  The computer that I used to actually write the game (and the earlier NMR1) is long gone, of course, and the floppies on which it was distributed can no longer be read, but I did eventually find backup CDs that contained both of my NMR games, including the sources and the playable versions as originally distributed.  So I thought I would post them along with these notes.  I should add that there is a bit of a mystery as to dates, in that IFDB lists NMR2 as being from 1990, and the list of “winners” of the annual AGT contest that mentions NMR 2 is also listed by IFDB as being from 1990.  But all of my NMR2 files are date-stamped 1991.  And all of my NMR1 original files are date-stamped 1990.  I tend to believe my date stamps!  
First, some history.  I was working at Bruker Instruments at the time I wrote the games, now Bruker Biospin, in Billerica, MA .  Bruker was and is the largest supplier of analytical NMR instruments in the world.  I was an expert in solid state NMR, which was a much smaller, sometimes ignored specialty as compared to the much more important and widely used liquid-state NMR.  As a bit of irony, in NMR1 the journal contains an interesting article on solid state NMR (more interesting to me), and yet in both games the spectrometer is clearly a liquids machine, and the NMR samples in both games are liquids (more interesting to most of our customers).  
The games were written as give-aways (“swag”) to our customers at an annual NMR conference called the ENC (Experimental NMR Conference), which continues to this day.   I never claimed to be a first-rate game designer, nor did I have infinite time to work on them.  In fact, they are the only two games I ever wrote.   
Second, my thanks to Bev Truter for the detailed review of the game.  I appreciate and agree with many of her comments.  It would appear, however, that she had a version of the game that was corrupted in some way.  In the version of NMR2 that was originally distributed, which I have uploaded herewith, the hint system did/does work, and it was/is possible to unlock the safe.    
I knew at the time I wrote the game that the coat pocket was an anomaly, in that you could drop it and pick it up.  I just didn’t think it was worth fixing.  I’m sure I could have done so if I felt that it was important.  Bev is not correct, however, that the pocket could be used to help in mapping out the game.  There is a command in the source code that ensures that the pocket always stays with the coat.  So if you drop it in the maze and then move to a different room, it will follow you there.
My apologies about the extensive maze in NMR2.  It was easy to create, had a cute name, and I did get rather carried away.  I was running out of time before the conference, and enlarging the maze seemed like an easy way to make the game bigger and more challenging.   However, you will note (from the hints) that there is a “magic word” that gets around the maze – “AMXX32”.  So, there is no need to study the source code to get past the maze.  Our flagship NMR system at that time was the “AMX” and it operated using a proprietary computer called the “X-32.”  Also, the magic word was meant to be a nod to the “XYZZY” magic word in the original Colossal Cave adventure game.  It works basically the same way.
Failure to replace the puffs of smoke and other game-standard language was more laziness than incompetence.  I certainly could have done it – it just didn’t seem important, and time was limited.  I had no idea that 28 years later the game would still be out there, or that any serious gamers would ever review it!  It was quick and dirty – and much fun to write.
By the way, our chief competitor at the time was Varian, and their flagship product was the “Unity,” which had a logo that looked a bit like the Olympic circles, but with only three rings.  Bruker’s logo looked a bit like a Helium atom.  When you examine the spectrometers in NMR2, you will see references to this.
The original NMR game, now usually referred to as NMR1, was distributed the year before NMR2 (in 1990) at the same conference.  Apparently, Bev did not enjoy it as much as the second one, but upon replaying it now I actually like it better.  I think the problems and solutions are more diverse and clever, but they are more specific to NMR, and hence perhaps less interesting to the general public.   While obscure to most people, the story line of NMR 1 was highly germane and relevant to our NMR customers, who had all gone through the process, some more than once, of dealing with pushy NMR salesmen from more than one company while negotiating to purchase an NMR system.  And of course I was poking fun at myself and my fellow Bruker employees, as well as at our competitors, which was not lost on the customers to whom we gave it out.
There are some inside jokes in the games, especially in NMR1, that may be of interest.  We had three liquid-state NMR competitors at the time, which were JEOL, GE, and Varian.  JEOL was, of course, a Japanese company.   They are each represented by an NMR salesman in NMR1.  The salesman trying to sell you a toaster is, of course, from GE.  Examine the toaster to confirm!  Varian was our strongest competitor, and I could not think of a relevant inside joke for them.  Instead, I just poisoned the Varian salesman in revenge for all the sales that they stole from us.  JEOL did not sell a system that would do “cutting edge” solid state NMR, so the salesman who does not want to talk about the interesting solid state NMR article (and wears silk) is from JEOL.  
One hint that should have been in NMR1 regarding the very last step was that you need to open and read the manual before you try to measure a spectrum.  Remember that back in 1991, Graphical user interfaces were still rather new, and were generally limited to Apples and “IBM-compatible” PCs.  Our spectrometers, like most technical equipment at the time, used a command-line, DOS-like operating system, and did not include extensive help meus, suggestive icons, etc.  So, it was expected that a customer would read the manual and memorize the commands before trying to operate the equipment.  “RTFM” (read the friggin’ manual) was a common phrase among manufacturers of technical equipment, and we were often frustrated when our customers failed to do so.   I thought I had included “RTFM” as the final hint in NMR1, but apparently I left it out.
And, by the way, root beer has always been my favorite soda!  
Because of these inside jokes, and because it was a new idea as a conference gift, I think the first game was better received than the second one by our customers, but I can see why NMR2 would be more interesting to others.   We decided not to do a third game, because it was no longer a novel idea, and by 1992 graphical games like Doom and Catacomb Abyss were becoming the rage, causing text adventures to look kind of drab to most people by comparison.  I have no idea what the plot for an NMR3 would have been, if I had decided to write one.
Anyway, thanks for the opportunity to stroll down memory lane.  I hope you enjoy these two working copies of the games, as well as their original sources.  If you somehow get ahold of this file and the attached games, and you don’t know about AGT, just unpack everything into a directory, mount the directory with DosBox, and type the name of the game (NMR or NMR2).  There are batch files that will take it from there.
Doug Burum