--- Eric Smith <eric_at_brouhaha.com> wrote:
> > and was able to boot up the
> > only DOS 3.3 disk I could find - Zork I.
>
> Minor nitpick: Zork I doesn't use DOS of any version. It was originally
> shipped on a bootable 13-sector diskette, and later on 16-sector, which
> is what you have.
True. Mea Culpa. I should have said, "the only Apple II bootable disk I
have is..."
> The earliest Zork I release was buggy as all heck. Once I managed to have
> in my inventory about 20-30 "rooms".
On an early version of Zork I for the C-64, I managed to "give me to the
thief". Later on, in the strange passage, I saw "a cretin" sitting in
the hallway.
> In the early-to-mid 1980s, Infocom used to offer a bunch of their games
> for the PDP-11. Naturally I didn't get my first -11 until after that.
> If anyone has a copy of Zork (or the other games) for the -11, I'd
> certainly love to get a copy.
I remember seeing "Planetfall" up on the wall of the Digital Store in
downtown Columbus when I was a kid. I knew who Digital was, but I
didn't get my first Dec machine until I was 16 (a PDP-8/L that took
two years to restore owing to a lack of docs).
> The -11 processor would do a good job of implementing the Z-machine.
I agree. They aren't much different from each other, architecturally. I've
completely disassembled the C-64 version 1 engine, partially commented it
and gotten it running on VICE with a VIC-20 and a BASIC 3.0 PET! If I ever
had _way_ too much free time, I could probably craft a working engine for
RT-11. I used to program that for a living, too, in a former life.
-ethan
=====
Even though my old e-mail address is no longer going to
vanish, please note my new public address: erd_at_iname.com
The original webpage address is still going away. The
permanent home is:
http://penguincentral.com/
See
http://ohio.voyager.net/ for details.
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Received on Tue Jun 20 2000 - 14:55:02 BST