Kenneth A. Williams is an American businessman and game programmer who co-founded On-Line Systems together with his wife Roberta Williams. On-Line Systems eventually became Sierra On-Line and was ultimately renamed Sierra Entertainment. The couple were leading figures in the development of graphical adventure games. At its height, Sierra employed nearly 1,000 people prior to its acquisition in 1996.
Williams addressing a crowd at a celebration of the On-Line Systems' first anniversary in 1981.
Ken Williams at a celebration of On-Line Systems' first anniversary, 1981
Wizard and the Princess
Videos
Wizard and the Princess is a graphic adventure game written for the Apple II and published in 1980 by On-Line Systems. It is the second installment in the Hi-Res Adventures series after Mystery House. Unlike its predecessor, which featured monochrome drawings, Wizard and the Princess introduced color graphics. Ports for the Atari 8-bit computers and Commodore 64 were released in 1982 and 1984 respectively. The 1982 self-booting disk version for IBM PC compatibles was renamed Adventure in Serenia.
Advertisement from the June 1981 issue of The On-Line Letter for some of On-Line Systems' Hi-Res Adventure games, including Wizard and the Princess
Apple and DOS version.