I will be using the 6264 8K SRAM chip. What will I use it for? Well, I will be asking BitShifter to modify his awesome PET #Infocom interpreter to use this 8K as a cache. The 32K of RAM on the PET forces the interpreter to load quite often from disk. An extra 8K will be very welcome to avoid too many loads.
more hilariously good TRS-80 software from the archive
Bedlam puts you in the role of a patient in a mental facility whose only goal is to escape
having worked in a psychiatric hospital in a previous life, i can confirm that (a) this is a rather uncharitable view of hospitals and their patients, and (b) 🤣
the answer/interpretive key for the mental health exam: classic!
Some time ago, it was announced on the Interactive Fiction Community Forum (intfiction.org) that there would be a lengthy conversation with the author of one of my favorite lighthearted pirate-themed adventure games. Today I learned that it had finally been published.
Yes, I am of course referring to Amy Briggs of Plundered Hearts fame:
It’s May over at @rmcretro and this month has #infocom Suspended. Our copy is missing one of the playing pieces, but is otherwise complete. Haven’t played it yet, but it’s on my bucket list! #interactivefiction#retrogaming
Musings on the Infocom logo. Or, okay, musings on changes to the Infocom logo that you have to be incredibly pedantic to notice without a magnifying glass.
does anyone know of a website that tracks/archives the contents of the Lost Treasures of Infocom I & II collections?
i've got a copy with a huge mix of contents - some browsies appear to be from folio editions of the game. i'd like to restore it to its factory contents.
I guess people have already talked about the Infocom interpreter source code (https://github.com/erkyrath/infocom-zcode-terps) which I posted a few days ago. Nonetheless, slightly late, here’s my explainer post:
today’s pickup is a Palm Tungsten E2. really excited about this one because it has a built-in SD card slot and bluetooth, making for super easy program/file transfers
appears to never have been used, and the battery still holds a strong charge!
one of the best #books i own is @matt's Incredible Doom mini-comics - the story is about teenagers caught up in the wonders of #modems and the #bbs days
it's one of those passion projects that took years to get to the finish line, and the final product is a work of art. each issue even has a feelie (technically a "browsie") in it, for those of you familiar with #infocom games
he mentioned that he's only got a handful of the physical mini-comics left, which can't be reprinted due to publisher considerations.
if you were planning on grabbing a set - now's the time.
So, both text adventures (Zork etc) and CRPGs (Ultima, Wizardry etc) came around late 70s early 80s.
But I've never seen a hybrid of the two. I mean an Infocom style puzzle/adventure game, but with combat, items etc.
Or a dungeon crawler with the flavorful exploration and puzzles of a text adventure.
It seems like a good fit, and closer to P&P than the pure hack & slays of the time. So why wasn't this ever a thing?
The source code for Infocom's Z-machine interpreters for a large number of 8 amd 16 bit microcomputers has been posted to Github (github.com)
Historical source code for Infocom's Z-machine interpreters - GitHub