Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
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From: blane@eskimo.com (Brian Lane)
Subject: Re: Z-Machine/BBSes
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Date: Wed, 29 Mar 1995 16:50:26 GMT
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Todd (tpm5y@darwin.clas.Virginia.EDU) wrote:
: A friend of mine recently obtained permission to (if he can
: figure out how) offer old Infocom games for on-line play on his
: BBS.  The biggest problems he has with this are:

  How did he do this? Contact Activision? Does this mean that anyone can
offer them or just your friend?

: 1) Finding a method by which the games can be run as doors, and

  compile zip for DOS and use one of those door programs thtat redirects i/o
to the serial port. check ftp.cdrom.com

: 2) Figuring out a way to fix the savegame directories so that
:    nobody can fiddle with paths and save where they shouldn't.

  Hack the ZIP code before you compile it.

: I know this doesn't have anything to directly do with the *art*
: of IF, but I do think it would be a great boost for the local
: community here in Charlottesville, VA and introduce a lot of
: people to some great Infocom adventures.

  More power to ya! I've got all of the TADS adventure I can find running
here, including Dungeon(a rewrite of the original Dungeon which Zork I,II,
and III came from).

: In reference to the first question, are there any Z-Machine
: interpreters which also act as doors?  Does anyone know what
: I'm talking about?

  I haven't seen any re-written as doors, but it shouldn't be too difficult
to use a FOSSIL interface. It would be alot easier if you were running
Linux.

     Brian
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