Z-machines for various 8-bit platforms

Last but not least, I spotted your name on another forum. I also have an Agon Light version of Vezza so you can test your z-machine game there too! Vezza - Agon by sijnstra

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Yes, that’s right I also have an Agon. I will try this as well.

That’s an interesting observation. I didn’t know about this bug but I will need to check to verify. Actually I tested all the interpreters for conformity with Inform games, particularly PunyInform games, when I created the Puddle BuildTools. And based on my observations, I chose the ideal interpreter for every platform. So I know about the issues of various interpreters on different target systems, but I never really documented them in list. The interpreters the BuildTools use by standard are all safe to use, the late Atari 2-disk interpreter version G is the recommended one for Atari 8-bit. This is the interpreter that came with Plundered Hearts.

All interpreters had been tested with rather complex games, including my own Hibernated Director’s Cut.

One thing one should avoid is running games in debug mode on these old interpreters, as debug uses stuff like print to memory which really makes the interpreter break. So recommended is: turn debug mode off. Other than that you should be fine to compile the game to systems you’re not familiar with.

The only interpreter that seriously should be used with caution Infocom’s only Z5 interpreter for Amiga, it is the one that came with Sherlock. It has serious problems with the upper window and particularly the cursor position, which causes Puny games to not draw the Statusline correctly. You can work around this as well though by overriding the library’s DrawStatusLine routine with a more compatible one. There is an example in the Hibernated source if anyone is interested.

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Just wondering… how much trouble would it be to have one of these tools target the P112 single board computer?

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Having looked at the source to a few PunyInform games, I suspect I may have over implemented some things and pushed the interpreter over the edge. Unfortunately rewriting my game (again) to dial some of this back feels like work rather than fun, so that’s unlikely to happen.

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The z5 standard (AKA Z-machine version 5) offers optional Undo support.

AFAIK, Ozmoo is the only 8-bit interpreter to support Undo, and even Ozmoo can only support it under certain circumstances.

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What language/library do you aim to use?

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As it turns out, Vezza is already running on Atari via Fujinet - @8bit_era pointed this out as a possibility and then became my expert tester to get it all up and running.

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Is an embedded CP/M box which yells at your computer over a serial connection “running on” that computer?

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I’m not sure if you’re referring to a P112, but a lot of people do use them that way.

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Referring to Fujinet. Your earlier mention of the P112 is the first I’d heard of it!

Oh. The P122 is a CP/M computer in its own right. Users interact with it using an rs232 serial terminal or a terminal program on a modern computer. I made and sold these as kits until the super-IO chips got too hard to find.

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The P112, correct me if I am wrong, does support CP/M. I think I saw videos of it running CP/M 2.2 so I strongly believe that with some magic from @sijnstra, he could make his brilliant VEZZA interpreter run on it. Am I right? :smiley:

Your assumption is correct. There is no other 8-bit interpreter that supports UNDO.

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Zym does, but that’s a pretty niche example. Saving state for UNDO normally just takes too much memory and CPU time to be worth it on 8-bit.

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Well Ozmoo is a niche example too. It uses the extra RAM and crazy-fast DMA copy support provided by a Ram Expansion Unit (REU) or, if necessary, the decent CPU speed and RAM amount provided by the C128. On a Plus/4 or a vanilla C64, there’s no sensible way to provide this functionality.

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Fellows!

Everything in this thread, really everything on this entire domain is “pretty niche.”

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It’s niches all the way down.

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The P122 runs CP/M 2.2, 3, and zsdos among others

I do know that Vezza has successfully run on the P112. I do believe it has no built in video capability/terminal, so it’s a matter of which terminal are you using. I would imagine most people are using something that is VT100 compatible. There’s a straight up VT100 build as well as a 16 colour ANSI build available which should do the trick nicely.

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