robotfindskitten is a "Zen simulation," originally written by Leonard Richardson for DOS. It is a free computer game with an ASCII interface in which the user (playing the eponymous robot and represented by a pound sign "#") must find kitten (represented by a random character) on a field of other random characters. Walking up to items allows robot to identify them as either kitten, or any of a variety of whimsical, strange or simply random Non-Kitten Items (NKIs). It is not possible to lose (though there is a patch which adds a 1 in 10 probability of the NKI killing robot). The original robotfindskitten program was the sole entrant to a contest in 1997 at the mostly unknown webzine Nerth Pork—the object: create a depiction of "robotfindskitten". (The 'robotfindskitten' concept was originally created by Jacob Berendes but the only submissions he received depicted kittens meeting an untimely end at the hands of malevolent robots.) When the author rewrote the program for Linux in 1999 it gained popularity and now has its own website and mailing lists. Since then, it has been ported to and/or implemented on over 15 platforms, including, POSIX, the Sega Dreamcast, Palm OS, TI 99/4A and more. Graphical versions, such as an OpenGL version with # emblazoned on an otherwise featureless cube, also exist.
