From: meltsner@crd.ge.com (Kenneth J Meltsner)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Zork/Dungeon (was Re: MDL)
Date: 5 Oct 92 15:24:47 GMT
Reply-To: meltsner@crd.ge.com
Organization: GE Research and Development Center



In article <1992Oct2.104737.21357@news.columbia.edu>,
lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner) writes:
|>The consensus is that the splitting is an unacceptable
|>intrusion into the spirit of the game, and was merely done as an expediency
|>so each part can fit into the memory of 64K machines alongside an interpreter
|>of the Z code generated for that module of the game.

It wasn't the memory of the machines, but the disk space.  The
original ZIL interpreters did include the ability to load (somewhat
compressed) text off of disk, as well as ZIL codes as you went from
room to room.  Unfortunately, given the incredibly small disks of the
time on machines like the C-64, even putting the interpreter on a
separate disk would still mean that an unpartitioned full Zork would
require more floppy swaps than you could imagine.

The memory became a constraint later on as the parsers became more
sophisticated, more verbs were added, etc.  I still remember the
impressive shift from 64K to 128K required memory -- the extra 64K
made a real difference for a couple of games.  (Which ones?  I recall
that Meretzkey's "A Mind Forever Voyaging" was the first 128K game,
but I could be wrong.  They're all boxed in the attic now.)

As to Infocom and Dungeon and MIT:

(Several of) The Infocom founders were employed by MIT and wrote the
original MDL Zork as a response to Adventure and as something of an
experiment.  MIT released the rights to Zork, based on its lack of
commercial value, and a FORTRAN version was hacked together, which
appears to be the source of the C version.  Along the main line of
development of Zork, the Infocom founders formed the company (which
was intended to be a database company eventually, hence the name) and
wrote a Zork series broken up into chunks small enough to fit on the
dominant personal computers (Apples, etc.) of the time.  Everything
grew from the Zork series, although the games became simpler and less
arbitrary to facilitate solution without "secret" knowledge, and
because most people had serious problems solving the "expert level"
Infocom games.

Infocom eventually killed itself off by pouring tons of bucks into
Cornerstone, which was its original reason for existence, and was
acquired by Activision.  Activison never understood the niche text
adventure market and proceeded to push out mediocre and under-tested
adventures with increasing graphical content.  Eventually, they pulled
the plug on the Cambridge operation.

Infocom at its peak put out literate and well-tested games of a
quality unmatched by its competitors or successors.  A few approach
the effect of a good short story or novella; I'd suggest Trinity or
Bureaucracy for good examples of what can be done within the
Infocom-style adventure genre.

Disclaimer: I was in a club at MIT with some of the Infocom types.
Most of this based on dim recollections.  Also, my wife beta-tested
several Infocom games.


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Ken Meltsner                        | meltsner@crd.ge.com (518) 387-6391
GE Research and Development Center  | Fax:  (518) 387-7495
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