Archived from groups: rec.games.int-fiction (
More info?)
dunric@yahoo.com wrote:
> How are inform story files handled differently between Winfrotz, Frotz
> and Inform? Do they all handle .Z3, .Z5, .Z6, .Z8, etc. story files the
> same way?
>
> Paul
>
You have your terms mixed. Inform is simply a programming language,
like BASIC, C, or High-LeveL Assembler for that matter, created by
Graham Nelson in the early 90s. While you can write any kind of program
with Inform, it has been specifically designed for the creation of text
adventures.
When you compile your Inform program, it creates a binary program that
runs on a virtual machine called the Z-Machine, which was originally
designed by Infocom back in the day. The advantage of using a virtual
machine is that, with the appropriate interpreter, your program can be
run on a huge variety of computers and computing devices.
Inform and the Z-Machine are not tied to one another. A newer version
of the Inform compiler, for instance, targets a newer virtual machine
designed by Andrew Plotkin called Glulx, which allows for larger story
files and allows multimedia content in your adventure. By the same
token, Infocom did not use Inform -- obviously, since it didn't exist
yet -- but rather had their own programming language called ZIL. This
has unfortunately been lost, with the exception of a few reference
documents that escaped from Activision following Infocom's demise.
It is concievable that someone could write a version of C, BASIC, or
some brand new language to target the Z-Machine, although to my
knowledge no one has. A simple analogy would be: Z-Machine=Commodore
64. Inform=BASIC.
There are different versions of the Z-Machine. Most interpreters
support .Z3, .Z4, .Z5, and .Z8 games at a minimum, and some support .Z6
(a graphical format used by Infocom for their last 4 games and for just
1 publicly released game since.) People who wish to include graphics in
their games now generally target Glulx, since it is much easier to work
with than .Z6.
Most modern games are written in .Z5 and .Z8 formats. You can target
either of these formats with the Z-Machine Inform compiler. These are
the most advanced of the text-only Z-Machine versions, providing a lot
of nice text formatting features, undo, etc. The only difference
between these two formats is the maximum story file size: 256KB for .Z5,
512KB for .Z8. Most games fit fairly comfortably into the 256KB limit,
but .Z8 is always available for more ambitious efforts. If you go
beyond even 512KB, there is always Glulx, which allows an effectively
unlimited story file size. There are however fewer Glulx interpreters
available at the moment, so you somewhat restrict your potential
audience by going with Glulx. You should probably only do so if you
need the additional space, or your want to include graphics and/or sound.
For a lot of good information on Inform, see Roger Firth's excellent
FAQ: http://www.firthworks.com/roger/informfaq/index.html.
Jimmy
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