Columns is, without a doubt, a bonafide Sega classic, but it didn’t start out as a Sega game at all. The truth is that Columns was invented within the walls of computer hardware company Hewlett-Packard in 1989, by programmer Jay Geertsen. He made the original Columns game for HP-UX, an operating system unique to HP’s company computers at the time. Friends of his within the same company then ported his Columns game to MS-DOS and Macintosh computers. In 1990, Sega learned of Columns, bought the rights to it off of Mr. Geertsen, and got straight to work on the first Sega Columns games for Master System, Game Gear, Genesis/Mega-Drive, and their System C arcade board. While those versions of Columns went on to widespread fame, most have never played or seen either of the original three computer versions of Columns.
Now, a twitter user calling themselves Trevgauntlet Noə has managed to get a hold of the original HP-UX version of Columns, gotten it running, and took some screenshots of it. They even went the extra mile and made HP-UX and this original Columns playable in the MAME emulation software for both Windows 10 and 11 and Ubuntu Linux. All Columns fans and Sega historians alike owe Trevgauntlet Noə a big thank you for their effort in preserving this rarely seen piece of Sega history.
You can check out the tweet right here or click the above screenshot. For a gallery of all screenshots they’ve made, as well as links to the HP-UX Columns software for MAME on Archive.org, take a look past the break. While you’re there, tell us in the comments about what your favorite Columns game is.
Check out HP-UX Columns through MAME by getting the Windows 10/11 compatible files here or the Ubuntu Linux compatible files here. Instructions on how to get started are on both pages. Download MAME from the official website here.
If you’re interested in more info about the history of HP-UX Columns, check out this interview that Retro Gamer magazine did with Jay Geertsen in 2019.
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I have some more good news. I managed to get HP-UX version 10 to run on QEMU, both on MACos Silicon & Windows 10 and 11. Both are uploaded on my archive as well. It’s the last version of HP-UX to run VUE, which holds Columns.