Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Users Search
Help Dashboard Sign In Sign Up
Q&A Meta
Q&A
Posts Tags Edits
Ask Question

Comments on When did "sandbox" come to prominence as a piece of jargon?

Parent

When did "sandbox" come to prominence as a piece of jargon?

+7
−0

When did "sandbox" become a popular term in rpg discourse?

It has been suggested to me that it came from computer games to roleplaying. Was this the case and when did this happen?

This thread at Enworld from 2007 uses the term and assumes familiarity.

This thread uses different terminology, though sandbox is mentioned once in post number 42.

I can't make the rpg.net search engine look for old posts except by very tedious manual navigation, but maybe someone figures out what the parameter in for example this url means and does it: https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?search/2363567/&q=sandbox&c[older_than]=1597680120&o=date

The old Wizards of the coast forums are by now long gone, but would have been a valuable source. Maybe Dragonsfoot has something, too?

history-of-gaming terminology
posted over 2 years ago
CC0
2y ago by Trilarion‭
user card
tommi‭
364 reputation 11 7 57 2
History
Why does this post require moderator attention?
You might want to add some details to your flag.
Why should this post be closed?

0 comment threads

Post
+0
−2

It may date back as far as the iPhone (2007)

ref : https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12055990/what-is-sandbox-in-ios-can-i-transfer-data-between-one-app-to-another-app

It was in the context of protecting the iPhone from user applications by "sandboxing" them inside a virtual machine that I first heard the term.

posted almost 2 years ago
user card
James McLellan‭
-3 reputation 0 1 -2 0
History
Why does this post require moderator attention?
You might want to add some details to your flag.

1 comment thread

Connection to roleplaying use? (2 comments)
Connection to roleplaying use?
tommi‭ wrote almost 2 years ago
copy link

Thanks for the answer. Do you have any idea if or documentation that this use created or influenced the tabletop use? The 2007 use is as old as the forum references I mentioned, which would also be consistent with a common third source, such as maybe digital games. Or maybe digital games got it from there?

Angew‭ wrote over 1 year ago
copy link

This doesn't sound like a likely source to me, as the meanings differ substantially. In RPGs, a sandbox means "there's no pre-scripted plot, you're free to do whatever you want in the world." In the computing context, it means "you're isolated from the actual system so that you can't harm it; your actions can have no effect outside the sandbox." To me, that sounds almost opposite in principle.