Source Code for Infocom games – including the Zcode interpreter
Infocom games were THE games to play in the late 70’s through the 80’s, featuring such classics as Zork, Planetfall, and Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
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In 2019, Jason Scott posted all the source code for Infocom’s text adventure games.
Infocom’s interpreter source, however, remained obscure. ZIL (or Zork Implementation Language) wasn’t designed with a particular platform in mind but instead could be interpreted to work on a variety of systems using machine-dependent interpreters. The interpreters were well studied by enthusiasts who even made a modern Z-machine specification and an open-source IF interpreters.
That source was largely considered lost, despite Brian Moriarty donating the interpreter code for the TRS-80 Color Computer. That is until a few weeks ago when someone said they had the code and posted the original interpreter source code.
Links:
- https://blog.zarfhome.com/2023/11/infocom-interpreters
- https://blog.zarfhome.com/2019/04/all-of-infocoms-game-source-code
- Infocom game source: https://github.com/historicalsource/
- Infocom interpreter source: https://github.com/erkyrath/infocom-zcode-terps
- https://www.timeextension.com/news/2023/11/the-source-code-for-infocoms-amazing-code-porting-tools-has-now-been-preserved