島鉄雄です。
Post by Happy MAC XLThanks John. So I probably should confess that i'm a Hobbyist and a relatively novice one at that; so whilst the desire is there the experience and knowledge isn't so i've got a steep learning curve here.
"The ZILCH compiler itself didn’t run on the Z-machine; it ran on a DEC
TOPS-20 system that Infocom always called “the mainframe”."
I didn't know that, thanks for mentioning it, I think I can safely say that I won't be using ZILCH then ... :)
"If you have a new ZIL compiler, then you’ll need whatever that runs on. That’s
probably Windows, macOS, or Linux, so you should be OK. "
I have the one mentioned earlier yes so all being well this will do
the trick. I'll be doing the whole thing (likely including writing
the narrative) on a 32-Bit Linux OS. Actually you might be able to
help me, would you know offhand please whether from a compiling
perspective it would matter whether this was done on 32-Bit or 64-Bit?
Are they interchangeable in terms of the "compiled end product"?
I did manage to contact Bruce Daniels through LinkedIn and have a conversation running with him; just explaining what i'm hoping to achieve with all this.
Just my two cents.
I think I understand why you want to use ZIL these days. It's to get
that "old school" look and feel in the game, am I right? I tried to do
the same thing back in the days; my idea was to use old IF systems for
ZX Spectrum. However, soon enough I realized that there is just no way I
can fit modern game (plus the interpreter) in 64 or even 128 Kb of
memory. And it's just text, not even mentioning game logic. It also
helped me to understand why almost all text adventures back in 80's
were puzzle-oriented.
You might run into similar issues, when restictions of ZIL and Z-machine
won't allow you to do what you can do with modern systems. Authors in
90's had no choice, they had to live with it. I would suggest you to use
a modern system to develop and test the game, and when you are ready to
release, you might try to find a programmer who can tweak the
interpreter to make it look like an "old school" game. I mean fullscreen
mode, old fonts, old color palette, maybe even TV interlaced scan
lines. :) Or you can do it yourself if you're a programmer. It's not
that hard technically, just no one done it before.
Post by Happy MAC XL:)
Post by John W KennedyPost by John W Kennedy1. Do you have a ZIL compiler?
https://bitbucket.org/jmcgrew/zilf/wiki/Home
2. Do you have a TOPS-20 system capable of running it?
The .z* game file should run on Z-Machine (at least that's my
experience so far) so i'm not too sure I know where you're coming
from on this? I've built a TOPS-10 emulation (PDP-10) system
running on Raspberry Pi so if push comes to shove i'm sure I could
look at this. Can you explain a little more on this please?
Thanks.
The ZILCH compiler itself didn’t run on the Z-machine; it ran on a DEC
TOPS-20 system that Infocom always called “the mainframe”. If you have a
new ZIL compiler, then you’ll need whatever that runs on. That’s
probably Windows, macOS, or Linux, so you should be OK.
Post by John W Kennedy3. Are you aware that ZILCH had no library? That a game written in ZIL
must include a parser and world model written from scratch? The only
thing you get for free is the lexer, which is built into the Z machine.
Parser yes, world model no! That's food for thought.
If you don’t have a world model, then you don’t have a parser, either.
Not, at least, as the word “parser” is used in the IF world. A usable
natural-language parser needs to understand the world model in order to
disambiguate. However, I gather this ZILF package includes a
foundational world model and parser that you can start from. That’s what
the Implementors did; each new game after Zork I started with an old
game, which was then gutted and rebuilt for the new scenario.
Post by John W KennedyThanks
Post by John W KennedyPost by Happy MAC XLHi all,
I know we can use TADS and INFORM7 etc but for kicks I really want to get into ZIL code and write some programs/test-games in code before attempting a much bigger project.
What is the knowledge of and usage of ZIL like these days? Could anyone out there give me some pointers please and i'll return the favour if possible!
Are any of the original ZIL coders still active or maybe amenable to helping a 'noob' out? :)
1. Do you have a ZIL compiler?
2. Do you have a TOPS-20 system capable of running it?
3. Are you aware that ZILCH had no library? That a game written in ZIL
must include a parser and world model written from scratch? The only
thing you get for free is the lexer, which is built into the Z machine.
--
John W. Kennedy
"The blind rulers of Logres
Nourished the land on a fallacy of rational virtue."
-- Charles Williams. "Taliessin through Logres: Prelude"
--
John W. Kennedy
"The blind rulers of Logres
Nourished the land on a fallacy of rational virtue."
-- Charles Williams. "Taliessin through Logres: Prelude"
--
41号