Does anyone here know of where a source archives of Frotz older than 2.32 can be found? I’m trying to work out what was done between the time it was Zip and became what we know as Frotz today.
I did a quick search on my files (2.40 is the oldest I have) and Github. I hope something useful is here:
There’s an older commit…
About this one… not so sure:
There’s a list: Search · frotz · GitHub
I was surprised how hard it is finding older Frotz sources. I actually found it easier getting sources from all the incarnations of the good old ZIP terp. What I did discover though is an archive containing the Frotz 2.01 sources. I think this was used to port the game to OS/2 but the basic source is in there too and it seems from 1996. Hope this helps! https://www.cjmweb.net/os2/frotz201_std02_os2b7.zip
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Unfortunately, that zip archive contains only the OS/2 changes. It also requires ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/infocom/interpreters/frotz/frotz201_src.zip, which is now lost.
That port of Frotz to the Sega Dreamcast is based on version 2.40.
Not sure if this might be of any value. I have looked through my old backup cds. There is a Frotz 2.32 source archive from 1997, which might be older than the repo version you have and I found a source archive for WinFrotz r45, also from 1997, which contains Frotz sources as well, but I cannot tell what version they reflect. There is also a binary of Frotz 2.22, but unfortunately it seems, I didn‘t save the sources. If you want to have a look at the two archives, let me know!
I wonder if it’s the same as my UnixFrotz232R2Std10.tar.gz. Unfortunately I don’t have anything older than that squirreled away from my university years.
Are there any surviving ftp.gmd.de FTP mirrors from back then? I couldn’t find any, and whatever I found didn’t have anything older.
Edit: The file name matches the one in the “old” directory at the IF Archive, so presumably it’s the same. But at least it prompted me to submit some older versions of Z-code games that I couldn’t find already archived at the IF Archive.
It doesn’t have R2 in the name, but perhaps that is just not the original name. This is what is inside:
Archive: Frotz232Src.zip
Length Method Size Cmpr Date Time CRC-32 Name
-------- ------ ------- ---- ---------- ----- -------- ----
6939 Defl:N 1490 79% 09-15-1997 15:49 ad8a2a00 STREAM.C
18355 Defl:N 5212 72% 09-18-1997 22:21 4186ecce FASTMEM.C
5888 Defl:N 1944 67% 09-18-1997 22:30 a0bd2181 INPUT.C
9178 Defl:N 2515 73% 08-22-1997 20:49 68ff7a72 FILES.C
2705 Defl:N 852 69% 08-22-1997 16:15 d336f811 REDIRECT.C
21568 Defl:N 6332 71% 09-18-1997 22:27 4dc7d68d TEXT.C
1063 Defl:N 465 56% 06-14-1997 16:28 ae3c0ca4 GETOPT.C
13084 Defl:N 3867 70% 09-18-1997 19:37 5ab84238 PROCESS.C
3522 Defl:N 1304 63% 09-10-1997 20:07 0973cf95 MAIN.C
4458 Defl:N 1223 73% 08-22-1997 20:30 e0bc04cb HOTKEY.C
34895 Defl:N 8875 75% 09-18-1997 22:17 fdd40f20 SCREEN.C
17148 Defl:N 3004 83% 09-18-1997 19:44 b2f4ae82 OBJECT.C
2147 Defl:N 860 60% 09-18-1997 22:21 f0b62a99 BUFFER.C
1221 Defl:N 486 60% 07-19-1997 18:51 151aee7e RANDOM.C
4851 Defl:N 1074 78% 06-14-1997 15:55 2545109f VARIABLE.C
3353 Defl:N 995 70% 07-19-1997 19:00 253fcfcf TABLE.C
3079 Defl:N 1155 63% 07-19-1997 19:29 09b154e2 SOUND.C
17797 Defl:N 5097 71% 09-18-1997 10:55 6f278075 BCTEXT.C
3750 Defl:N 797 79% 08-22-1997 16:04 cc5ea01c MATH.C
17646 Defl:N 5631 68% 09-10-1997 20:57 21e25e38 BCINIT.C
19842 Defl:N 5838 71% 09-07-1997 21:21 a82ab26e BCINPUT.C
1022 Defl:N 469 54% 09-07-1997 21:21 0dd452b7 BCMOUSE.C
16645 Defl:N 5528 67% 09-07-1997 21:21 dec9ea44 BCPIC.C
4898 Defl:N 1351 72% 09-18-1997 22:36 d4a0075b BCSCREEN.C
8820 Defl:N 2623 70% 09-18-1997 22:35 6b51a056 BCSAMPLE.C
15552 Defl:N 4238 73% 08-26-1997 20:00 47fcb3f2 FROTZ.H
1928 Defl:N 662 66% 09-07-1997 11:26 58b7c1a2 BCFROTZ.H
3635 Defl:N 1703 53% 09-19-1997 19:38 99e4ea7e README.TXT
26976 Defl:N 6314 77% 09-07-1997 12:04 5d06f0ea FONT.DAT
-------- ------- --- -------
291965 81904 72% 29 files
Inside the Winfrotz source package, there you find this. But I am not familiar with the frotz source, so I cannot tell, if this is the original Frotz source or been modified.
33905 Defl:X 8363 75% 06-04-1997 06:04 b8635778 Frotz/Screen.c
1898 Defl:X 773 59% 02-25-1997 14:08 c9eeb474 Frotz/Buffer.c
16285 Defl:X 4685 71% 03-27-1997 16:46 3e339c88 Frotz/Fastmem.c
9530 Defl:X 2576 73% 02-26-1997 00:18 7252b003 Frotz/FILES.C
1105 Defl:X 486 56% 05-15-1997 23:17 e2715a74 Frotz/Getopt.c
6022 Defl:X 1740 71% 05-15-1997 23:35 d2c3ce44 Frotz/Hotkey.c
6059 Defl:X 2119 65% 03-26-1997 00:38 5d3fb6d9 Frotz/Input.c
3362 Defl:X 1296 62% 02-21-1997 21:01 6d032b77 Frotz/Main.c
3733 Defl:X 797 79% 02-21-1997 21:01 a2771f0c Frotz/Math.c
17346 Defl:X 3100 82% 02-21-1997 21:01 abfd2181 Frotz/Object.c
24 Stored 24 0% 02-21-1997 21:01 3962c7c4 Frotz/OTHER.C
13373 Defl:X 3931 71% 06-04-1997 22:15 9dd15232 Frotz/Process.c
1244 Defl:X 490 61% 02-21-1997 21:01 38edf9e0 Frotz/Random.c
2034 Defl:X 662 68% 02-21-1997 21:01 2ebb952a Frotz/REDIRECT.C
9297 Defl:X 2909 69% 06-03-1997 01:48 05265051 Frotz/Alias.c
2027 Defl:X 938 54% 02-21-1997 21:01 b18464cc Frotz/SOUND.C
5529 Defl:X 1362 75% 06-04-1997 21:59 951281b4 Frotz/Stream.c
3362 Defl:X 1009 70% 02-21-1997 21:01 facd046d Frotz/Table.c
18022 Defl:X 5421 70% 02-21-1997 21:01 47fcb290 Frotz/Text.c
4839 Defl:X 1074 78% 02-21-1997 21:01 82876a66 Frotz/Variable.c
19136 Defl:X 4557 76% 05-15-1997 23:26 d3e70aca Frotz/Frotz.h
21215 Defl:X 7965 63% 02-18-1997 18:26 997dde4b Frotz/GUIDE.TXT
Unfortuantely I am not aware of a GMD archive, neither. In this case it probably wouldn’t have helped a lot anyway, I guess. When GMD was shut down, the older Frotz sources probably were not in there anymore?!?
Too bad, I didn’t store the frotz2.22 sources back then… this seems to be the oldest stuff that I still have. Before that I was using tapes, but those are long gone…
You’re probably right. I wonder if it was distributed outside of the IF Archive? I spent some time searching the old comp.sources Usenet groups at Google Groups, but to no avail. Some cover disc perhaps?
I remember that there was a Frotz homepage, but I cannot tell when it existed. Perhaps it didn’t exist pre-2.32 and Frotz was only distributed via the old gmd archive.
I have also tried several old Linux distributions, but e.g Debian seems to include it since 2.32. so unfortunately I did not find an old source package in the old distros,neither. Guess, unless someone finds it on old backups, it might indeed be lost…
There’s a set of older Frotz releases in the old Frotz interpreter archive at IFarchive.org. Note that this is a distinct folder from the new(er) versions on IFArchive. I don’t think it’s comprehensive, but a fair number of them pre-date 2.32. Also: they don’t appear to be in order of age, so you get 2.32, 1.22 and 0.2 mixed together without rhyme or reason.
Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be anything in there that helps in this case. The sources are 2.32+ and the archives targeting older Frotz versions do only contain binaries afaik.
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If it helps to have file names to look for, looking at the ftp statistics for 1996 and 1997 that are still stored at ifarchive https://ifarchive.org/if-archive/info/archive-stats/gmd-ftpstats96.txt and https://ifarchive.org/if-archive/info/archive-stats/gmd-ftpstats97.txt It looks like the following files were available:
29 if-archive/infocom/interpreters/frotz/frotz-2.01unixbeta1.tar
165 if-archive/infocom/interpreters/frotz/frotz-2.01unixbeta2.tar
2 if-archive/infocom/interpreters/frotz/frotz-2.01unixbeta2.tar.gz.tar
181 if-archive/infocom/interpreters/frotz/frotz101_source.zip
403 if-archive/infocom/interpreters/frotz/frotz101_standard02.zip
202 if-archive/infocom/interpreters/frotz/frotz201_src.zip
2 if-archive/infocom/interpreters/frotz/frotz201_src.zip.tar
696 if-archive/infocom/interpreters/frotz/frotz201_std02.zip
2 if-archive/infocom/interpreters/frotz/frotz201_std02.zip.tar
4 if-archive/infocom/interpreters/frotz/frotz201_std02_os2b2.zip
16 if-archive/infocom/interpreters/frotz/frotz201_std02_os2b3.zip
10 if-archive/infocom/interpreters/frotz/frotz201_std02_os2b4.zip
16 if-archive/infocom/interpreters/frotz/frotz201_std02_os2b5.zip
10 if-archive/infocom/interpreters/frotz/frotz201_std02_os2b6.zip
61 if-archive/infocom/interpreters/frotz/frotz201_std02_os2b7.zip
150 if-archive/infocom/interpreters/frotz/frotz201_unixbeta3.tar
1 if-archive/infocom/interpreters/frotz/frotz201_unixbeta3.tar.gz.tar
47 if-archive/infocom/interpreters/frotz/frotz201_unixsrc.tar
22 if-archive/infocom/interpreters/frotz/frotz201a_unixsrc.tar
1 if-archive/infocom/interpreters/frotz/frotz201a_unixsrc.tar.gz.txt
74 if-archive/infocom/interpreters/frotz/Frotz221Std02.zip
1 if-archive/infocom/interpreters/frotz/Frotz221Std02.zip.tar
388 if-archive/infocom/interpreters/frotz/Frotz222Src.zip
1 if-archive/infocom/interpreters/frotz/Frotz222Src.zip.tar
907 if-archive/infocom/interpreters/frotz/Frotz222Std02.zip
1 if-archive/infocom/interpreters/frotz/Frotz222Std02.zip.tar
I looked through some old Infomagic Linux Archive CD sets from 1996 and 1997 (I had bought them back then, but can’t find them, but they are archived at archive.org), but no joy.
When I first created my Frotz git repository, that non-R release made up the first commit.
I suppose if someone can figure out how to contact Stefan Jokisch, perhaps he has some pre-2.32 stuff. I haven’t communicated with him in years, none of the addresses I used then are good anymore, and I can’t find a current means of contacting him.
I havn’t mailed with Stefan since 20 years, I guess. Our last mail exchange is probably hidden in one of my archives, so this surely doesn’t help.
BTW, in the Frotz archive I found this note:
FROTZ - Contains slightly modified copies of Stefan's original device
independent code. This code belongs entirely to him; see that directory
for his readme's etc. This is not a complete copy of the Frotz source base
for 2.22. You should get that from Stefan, this is just what is required
to make WinFrotz.
So, probably it is older than the 2.32 release, but also incomplete. I you want to have a look at it anyway, let me know and I’ll send the archive.
Yes please.
The Debian changelog for the frotz package says its first version was 2.01. I haven’t been able to find it, but maybe it’s archived somewhere?
Interesting. The oldest reference I found was 2.32 in Debian Hamm. Well, if the package changed versions on the way to hamm, I guess, the previous packages are gone!?!