From: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Subject: Re: Zork/Dungeon (was Re: MDL)
Reply-To: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Organization: Columbia University
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1992 01:16:33 GMT

In article <12657@sail.LABS.TEK.COM> toma@sail.labs.tek.com writes:
>In article <1992Oct1.113936.24516@bohra.cpg.oz.au> als@bohra.cpg.oz.au (Anthony Shipman) writes:
>
>>So now I'm confused.  What is the genealogy?
>
>Originally Dungeon was written in MDL.

Yes, and that version is the only true version with one game not split, good
parser, whole game, endgame, full features, and eventually 616 points.

>
>I played a version in the late 1970's that was a translation into Fortran.
>It was dated 18-JUN-78, and was distributed by DECUS. Compared to the MDL
>version it claimed to lack the endgame, have a simple parser, and have
>numerous bugs and spelling errors. It had 500 points.

Yes, that was the terrible version that appeared on VMS V 1.0, which was
still somewhat RSX-11 in drag.  Internally, it was a hacked-up version of
ADVENT attempting to interpret the "cave" of MDL ZORK.  Several revisions
appeared periodically of both MDL ZORK and this Fortran hacked-up version.

>
>In 1980 (I believe) a new version came out, this time with sources, that
>had the endgame, the egg, the Bank of Zork, and the Puzzle Room added.
>Maximum score was now 585 points. The game was then renamed Zork.

No, Zork is the original name of the -10/20 version.  If you use the
"zork" command in any version, it responds with "at your service" shades of
PDP-10 AID. (eh?)


That very-much-improved Fortran version was slightly incompatible with the
MDL ZORK version in small ways (room directions off a little in spots) but
the disparity was much smaller.

Also, it's an announcement for the Infocom games to follow, and it's from
Infocom, not DEC, although Bob Supnik is clearly connected with the older
and this version; he was a DEC employee back then, and also now a manager
of Alpha.

>
>Infocom was apparently formed about this time to distribute commercially
>to the fledgling home computer market. I had CP/M versions of their games,
>for instance.

And at this time, "locking the barn after the horse was stolen" MIT copyrighted
the MDL ZORK version (c) 1980 MIT.

>
>They rewrote the games (again) to use a small compact interpreter and a
>database. (The Fortran is Spaghetti code). This made the program so it
>would run on machines with little memory (PDP/11's, 8080's...) since the
>database would be loaded as necessary from the (floppy) disk. The floppy
>disk capacity on these systems was not great enough to put the entire game,
>therefore they had to split it into three parts -- ZORK I, ZORK II, and
>ZORK III. (IMHO, it probably would have fit into two games, but because it
>doesn't really divide up well, they had to add to II and III to make them
>stand on their own).

Probably still has problems from its roots in being ADVENT Fortran code.

>
>This new C port, is the 1980 Fortran version brute force converted to
>C with a conversion program (this according to its documentation). Looking
>at the code bears this out -- it is terrible C code, full of gotos! Quite
>naturally it is the same as the old version.
>
>-- 
>Tom Almy
>toma@sail.labs.tek.com
>Standard Disclaimers Apply

cjl

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