paul@nessus.UUCP (06/04/87)
I'm looking for a ZIL interpreter that will run under System V UNIX.
I have purchased some Infocom software to run on an AT under DOS, and I'm
sick and tired of having to bring up DOS every time I want to play them
(that's all that DOS is useful for...:-) ) -- Has anyone out there tried
to make a ZIL interpreter in C? After some carefull digging (I bought
Zork I years and years ago for CP/M) I found out that the .DAT files follow
a common format -- think of it as I-code (or Z-code?) -- something like the
UCSD P-code of ages past.
Anyway, I'd like to get (or build if I can get hints) an intepreter so that
I can run the games on the unix side of the machine.
If any of you wonderful tykes from Infocom read this, kindly forward it to
your legal department so they can begin proceedings against me (Yes, I've
been playing Bureaucracy).
... a troubled soul
--
{ucbvax|sdcsvax|pyramid}!ucsbcsl!nessus!paul Paul S. Traina
paul%nessus%sbphy.ucsb@lbl.arpa VMS & UNIX Systems Programmer
paul%nessus@sbitp.bitnet [your company name can be here]
pst@ai.ai.mit.edu +1 805 968-1658 (Santa Barbara)kagle@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Jonathan C. Kagle) (06/17/87)
In article <77@nessus.UUCP> paul@nessus.UUCP writes: >... -- Has anyone out there tried >to make a ZIL interpreter in C? After some carefull digging (I bought >Zork I years and years ago for CP/M) I found out that the .DAT files follow >a common format -- think of it as I-code (or Z-code?) -- something like the >UCSD P-code of ages past. > About six years ago, around the time when the first Apple ][ Zork I came out, Creative Computing ran an article about Zork in their adventure games issue. It was a fairly long article describing the design and implementation of their Z-code interpreter at MIT. I think it was written by Mark Blank. I believe that the creation and testing software runs on an old DEC running RSX or UNIX. If you think that they are going to release "important proprietary information," you don't know the software industry. On a similar front, though, SubLogic is releasing a scenery generator for FS2 (using their special coding scheme, of course!). -Jonathan Kagle