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From: erkyrath@netcom.com (Andrew Plotkin)
Subject: Re: Inform/Zmachine thoughts
Message-ID: <erkyrathDyCJvx.Hyq@netcom.com>
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Date: Thu, 26 Sep 1996 15:47:56 GMT
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Bryan Scattergood (104312.2206@compuserve.com) wrote:
> Seriously, is anyone working on standardizing the save game format?  
> The current format I use is going to need a clean-up soon and if I'm 
> changing it then it might as well converge with something.  (The 
> current format is basically a stack dump, a run-length encoded delta 
> from the resident memory pages and a (patched in) reference to the name 
> of the original story file.)

I'm about to switch XZip over to the format used by JZip, which is 
uncompressed but endian-clean.

Frotz uses a RLE-compressed, endian-clean save format (but is capable of 
loading the original ZIP save format as well.) I'd recommend that as 
something to converge on. In fact, seeing how neat the code is, I'll 
probably support it with XZip as well.

Although, dammit, no magic number. You have to distinguish the two 
formats by length.

--Z


-- 

"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the
borogoves..."
