


PINFO(1)                      Contributed Software                     PINFO(1)


NAME
       pinfo - play Infocom Inc. adventures

SYNOPSIS
       pinfo [-aAehoOpstvV] [-c context] [-i indent] [-l lines] [-m margin]
       [-r savefile] [display-flags] [datafile[.dat]]

DESCRIPTION
       This program allows most of the popular Infocom text  adventures  to
       be  played on your system. The games must be Standard Series for the
       interpreter to function correctly; see the file INFOTBL.TXT  in  the
       product release for full details on all Infocom games.

       The  -h  option will tell you what version of Z-Code Interpreter you
       need for that adventure.  The informational  printing  options  (-h,
       -o,  -O,  -v, and -V) will work with any adventure, but you won't be
       able to actually play any games except for  Standard  Series  adven-
       tures.


OPTIONS
       The command-line arguments allow for screen customizations, and also
       various forms of cheating and/or debugging.

   Informational
       These option will print information on the datafile to  the  screen.
       If  any of these are given the game is not actually played, informa-
       tion is just printed.

       Note that all these options except -h and -V will print  information
       that  you  are not supposed to know: examination of this information
       on a game you haven't  solved  could  seriously  detract  from  your
       enjoyment of the game.

       -h     print the datafile header

       -o     print the object names, attributes and links

       -O     print the object tree

       -v     print the game vocabulary

       -V     verify  the game data file to ensure it hasn't been corrupted
              (to get this same feature while playing use the $verify  com-
              mand)

   Game Play
       These  options  affect different aspects of game play.  Some of them
       may definitely be considered  cheating  as  they  print  information
       about the internals of the game as you are playing it.

       -a     display modifications to objects' attributes while playing

       -A     display value tests of objects' attributes while playing



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       -c context
              set  the number of lines of context to keep at the top of the
              screen when paging long output (default is 2)

       -e     echo each command before executing

       -i indent
              set the number of spaces in the left margin (default  is  0).
              Note  that  only  game  output  text  will be indented; input
              prompts and input will not.

       -m margin
              set the number of spaces in the right margin (default is 2)

       -p     don't page long output

       -P     set the alternate prompt flag (this flag is not used  in  all
              games)

       -r savefile
              causes  the  interpreter  to  restore the saved game savefile
              after starting up.

       -s     don't print status line

       -t     display modifications of the object tree while playing

       -T     set the Tandy Licensing flag (this flag is not  used  in  all
              games).   On  some  games  this  causes  printed  text  to be
              slightly different.


Interpreter Escape
       Some of the above flags and options may also be modified during game
       play via interpreter escapes.  Any command beginning with the escape
       character (normally ``@'') is assumed to be  an  interpreter  escape
       command.   The  current  commands  and their values may be listed by
       giving just  the  escape  character  by  itself.   Current  commands
       include:

       attr   Toggles the attribute printing variable (see -a above)

       echo   Toggles input line echoing (see -e above)

       pager  Toggles paged output mode (see -p above)

       prompt Toggles the alternate prompt (see -P above)

       status Toggles status line printing (see -s above)

       tandy  Toggles the Tandy license flag (see -T above)

       xfers  Toggles the object transfer flag (see -t above)




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       Additional  escape  commands  may  be defined by individual terminal
       interfaces; see below.

TERMCAP
       This section gives information  specific  to  the  termcap  terminal
       interface.   This  interface is for use with UNIX machines or others
       with UNIX-compatible termcap or terminfo libraries.  In addition  to
       termcap and terminfo it also supports the termio, termios, and sgtty
       line-discipline libraries.

   Options
       These options are in addition to the above, general options:

       -C file
              Specifies a file of completion words.  If not given no  words
              are  available  at  startup and any words defined during play
              will not be stored.  Note pinfo must  be  compiled  with  GNU
              Readline support to use this option.

       -H file
              specifies a GNU Readline library history file to be used.  If
              not given, history is not stored in a file.  Note pinfo  must
              be compiled with GNU Readline support to use this option.

   Subshells
       The TERMCAP version of the interpreter can invoke commands in a sub-
       shell or an interactive subshell in the normal UNIX  fashion:  i.e.,
       if a command's first character is an exclamation mark (bang) (``!'')
       then the remainder of the command is passed verbatim to a  subshell.
       If  there  is no text after the exclamation mark then an interactive
       subshell is invoked.

       The value of the environment variable SHELL is used as the subshell,
       or /bin/sh if SHELL doesn't exist or is empty.

       See  the  GNU Readline section for an exception when using GNU Read-
       line.

   GNU Readline
       The TERMCAP version of the interpreter contains optional support for
       the  GNU  Readline  library.  This library allows input line editing
       and history retrieval, including full incremental searching and csh-
       style  command-line  editing.  By default the key bindings are those
       of GNU Emacs, but the library is fully flexible and can  be  config-
       ured to work in vi mode, or you can roll-your-own bindings.

       Because  csh-style  editing  uses  an  exclamation mark as the first
       character for history substitutions, in order to get a subshell com-
       mand (see above) you should escape the exclamation mark with a back-
       slash (``\'') when using the GNU Readline library.  For example:

            >\!ls -l

       In addition to  the  standard  GNU  Readline  bindings,  the  single



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       character command ?  will cause the interpreter to print the current
       history list to the screen.

       See the GNU Readline manual for full details.

   Completion
       If the GNU Readline library is being used, then completion is avail-
       able by pressing the TAB key.  A list of all possible completions is
       available by pressing TAB twice in a row.

       During normal game play the interpreter maintains a list of possible
       words  to  complete  on.  This list is read in from a file specified
       with -C (above) at startup and written out to that file at  the  end
       of  the  game.   Modifications  to the list are possible via special
       interpreter escape commands (see below).

       Filename completion is  available  during  save/restore  processing,
       whenever the interpreter is asking for a filename.

   Interpreter Escapes
       Two  new  escape  commands  are  defined  in  addition to the normal
       escapes if pinfo is compiled to use the GNU Readline library.  These
       allow addition and deletion of words in the command completion list.

       add <word>
              Add <word>  to  the  completion  list.   Duplicates  are  not
              allowed.

       del <word>
              Delete <word> from the completion list.

   Environment Variables
       When using the interpreter with TERMCAP support, the following envi-
       ronment variables are used:

       SHELL  If set, contains the full path of the users shell.  This pro-
              gram  is  invoked  if  the shell command is typed at the game
              prompt with no arguments.

       TERM   This variable contains the terminal type used to display  the
              output.

       PI_FLAGS
              This  variable  should  contain  flags which you would always
              like present on the pinfo command line.  Any flags given here
              will be overridden by flags actually on the command line, and
              be the next two variables in the case of -H and -C.

       PI_HIST
              Contains the filename of the pinfo history file used with GNU
              Readline support (see above).  Setting -H on the command line
              overrides the value of this variable.





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PINFO(1)                      Contributed Software                     PINFO(1)


       PI_WORD
              Contains the filename of the  pinfo  command-completion  word
              file  used with GNU Readline support (see above).  Setting -C
              on the command line overrides the value of this variable.

STREAM
       There are no stream terminal interface specific flags  or  capabili-
       tites.

DATAFILES
       Infocom  games  consist  of a datafile and an interpreter which exe-
       cutes the instructions contained in the data file to run  the  game.
       This program is essentially a portable datafile interpreter.

       If you have the ``Lost Treasures of Infocom'' package for the IBM or
       Amiga you should have the datafiles readily available on the  disks.
       If  you  have any Infocom game for the Macintosh then when transfer-
       ring the program to your UNIX host be sure to not send the Macintosh
       resource  sections  (i.e.,  don't enable the MacBinary option).  Mac
       Infocom programs sans their resources are the datafiles  needed  for
       use with this program.


BUGS
       Some  of  the  data files have errors in their vocabulary lists.  If
       the -v option detects such an error it will put square brackets ([])
       around the offending word.  Such a word may not be used in the game,
       since the interpreter will not recognize it.  It actually  can't  be
       used  with  *any*  interpreter,  even  the ones from Infocom itself;
       these are bugs in the data file.


AUTHORS
       The original source code for this interpreter was the  InfoTaskForce
       interpreter, version REV_C.

       Paul D. Smith <paul_smith@dg.com>
              Modified  from  ITF  REV_C  to  the  current  version.   Many
              enhancements: see NEWS in the source distribution for a  com-
              plete list of user-visible modifications.

       Olaf Barthel <olsen@sourcery.mxm.sub.org>
              Contributed the Amiga terminal interface.

       Mike Threepoint <linhart@remus.rutgers.edu>
              Contributed the MS-DOS terminal interface.


COPYRIGHTS
       This  pinfo  interpreter is distributed under the GNU General Public
       License (see the file COPYING in the source directory).

       Infocom, Inc. has gone out of business,  but  the  rights  to  their
       games have been sold (various times!) and are currently still owned.



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       All Infocom games are still protected and as such may not be copied.

       Some  games  released  by  Infocom have a very restrictive copyright
       which states that the game may not be played on any platform  except
       that  for  which  it was sold.  Please refer to the copyright notice
       contained in your game to decide whether you will be violating copy-
       right laws before using it with this interpreter.

       Now that Lost Treasures is available there is no excuse for not pur-
       chasing the Infocom games yourself; at about $2.50 to $3.00 a  game,
       including  tax, shipping, handling, manual, maps, and hints [in LTOI
       I only] this is a bargain the likes of which you probably won't  see
       again in your lifetime! :-).

       Let's  all support Mediagenic in their release of Lost Treasures I &
       II and maybe they'll release the rest of the lost Infocom games.









































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