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From: "Ben A L Jemmett" <bal.jemmett@ukonline.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Cornerstone (was Re: [Inform][GLUX inform] IMPORTANT MESSAGE!)
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Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2002 17:34:09 GMT
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"Jim Nelson" <jim_nelson@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:MPG.16f27bd2340fed03989691@news.mindspring.com...
> Ben A L Jemmett (bal.jemmett@ukonline.co.uk) says ...
> >
> > The disadvantages were that it wasn't designed for network use, it was
> > rather slow (due to the fact it ran in a VM
>
> You don't think it ran in a Z-machine, do you?

Nope; the VM was called MME.EXE, and lived on the data disk with the
database files themselves.  Cornerstone itself sat in two files called
CORNER.OBJ and CORNER.MME, which filled the Cornerstone program diskette
which would usually be in drive B if you were running from floppies.

IIRC, CORNER.OBJ contained the various menu, help and message data, while
CORNER.MME contained the executable code; I don't think MME had a Z-machine
style header, but it's been a while since I looked at the files.

> Those Infocom guys really dug virtual machines.

With good reason; Java is proof that the concept was sound.  For business
apps, though, there was no real point since the PC was so prevalent.  There
was a never-released text-mode Mac version, I think (Google this group for
the reference IIRC), and perhaps the Tandy version was subtly different.
--
Regards,
Ben A L Jemmett.
(http://web.ukonline.co.uk/ben.jemmett/, http://www.deltasoft.com/)


