3 ms·

Building a Z-Machine in the worst possible language – Whitebeard's Realm

29 points by techbelly 6mo ago

user3939382 6mo ago
This is awesome. Presumably if this worked in Elm, Clojure would work too. There’s a very cool niche community around these games for those who don’t know. Vespers was one of the best games I ever played. Check out ifdb for games. There are mobile players available too.
- WalterGR 6mo ago
  IFDB (Interactive Fiction Database): https://ifdb.org/ https://ifdb.org/ Vespers on IFDB: https://ifdb.org/viewgame?id=6dj2vguyiagrhvc2 https://ifdb.org/viewgame?id=6dj2vguyiagrhvc2
  - doublerabbit 6mo ago
    Cool. Due to the UK Online Safety Act, all games on the IF Archive are currently unavailable to users in the United Kingdom. Uncool. Sigh
    - anthk 6mo ago
      Over Gopher: gopher://gopher.661.org/1/if-archive Proxy: http://portal.mozz.us http://portal.mozz.us The previous URL over the proxy: https://portal.mozz.us/gopher/gopher.661.org/1/if-archive https://portal.mozz.us/gopher/gopher.661.org/1/if-archive ZMachine games: https://portal.mozz.us/gopher/mercury.661.org/1/if-archive/games/zcode/ https://portal.mozz.us/gopher/mercury.661.org/1/if-archive/g... Tristam Island and Calypso (and All Things Devour, plus Spiritwrak) can be fetched over git/github, they are libre games, so no issues there. I can post links to the compiled ZMachine binaries if you want.
anthk 6mo ago
Is not the worst one, Zmachine.ps it's written in PostScript. On Games, get Tristam Island and Calypso in the Z3 versions.
- DougMerritt 6mo ago
  Although its core is low level, PostScript is a pretty good language by some metrics; it's often been claimed to be a (supposedly accidental) dialect of Forth with some powerful features bolted on. What makes Zmachine.ps so bad? Certain programming issues, or are you going off a general feel?
DerekL 6mo ago
Portability between different computers is only a secondary reason for the Z-machine. The most important reason is code size, making the largest possible game that can fit on a floppy disk. See the article “How to Fit a Large Program Into a Small Machine” by Marc S. Blank and S. W. Galley, in the July 1980 issue of Creative Computing. https://archive.org/details/creativecomputing-1980-07/page/n81/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/creativecomputing-1980-07/page/n...

29 points by techbelly 6mo ago

This is awesome. Presumably if this worked in Elm, Clojure would work too. There’s a very cool niche community around these games for those who don’t know. Vespers was one of the best games I ever played. Check out ifdb for games. There are mobile players available too.

WalterGR 6mo ago
IFDB (Interactive Fiction Database): https://ifdb.org/ https://ifdb.org/ Vespers on IFDB: https://ifdb.org/viewgame?id=6dj2vguyiagrhvc2 https://ifdb.org/viewgame?id=6dj2vguyiagrhvc2
- doublerabbit 6mo ago
  Cool. Due to the UK Online Safety Act, all games on the IF Archive are currently unavailable to users in the United Kingdom. Uncool. Sigh
  - anthk 6mo ago
    Over Gopher: gopher://gopher.661.org/1/if-archive Proxy: http://portal.mozz.us http://portal.mozz.us The previous URL over the proxy: https://portal.mozz.us/gopher/gopher.661.org/1/if-archive https://portal.mozz.us/gopher/gopher.661.org/1/if-archive ZMachine games: https://portal.mozz.us/gopher/mercury.661.org/1/if-archive/games/zcode/ https://portal.mozz.us/gopher/mercury.661.org/1/if-archive/g... Tristam Island and Calypso (and All Things Devour, plus Spiritwrak) can be fetched over git/github, they are libre games, so no issues there. I can post links to the compiled ZMachine binaries if you want.

anthk 6mo ago

Is not the worst one, Zmachine.ps it's written in PostScript. On Games, get Tristam Island and Calypso in the Z3 versions.

DougMerritt 6mo ago
Although its core is low level, PostScript is a pretty good language by some metrics; it's often been claimed to be a (supposedly accidental) dialect of Forth with some powerful features bolted on. What makes Zmachine.ps so bad? Certain programming issues, or are you going off a general feel?

DerekL 6mo ago

Portability between different computers is only a secondary reason for the Z-machine. The most important reason is code size, making the largest possible game that can fit on a floppy disk. See the article “How to Fit a Large Program Into a Small Machine” by Marc S. Blank and S. W. Galley, in the July 1980 issue of Creative Computing. https://archive.org/details/creativecomputing-1980-07/page/n81/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/creativecomputing-1980-07/page/n...