
Beyond Zork - jsnell
http://www.filfre.net/2015/11/beyond-zork/
======
douche
Funny, I've been working on a little fun side project to embed a Z-Machine
inside a Skype For Business chat bot.

Limited as interactive fiction is as a medium, its really impressive how
immersive an experience can be created with technology as simple as plain
ASCII text. You don't _need_ photorealistic, PBR graphics to make a fun,
engaging game.

The Z-Machine itself is a pretty remarkable piece of technology, especially
given the very limited capabilities of the PCs it was implemented for. Reading
the spec[1] has been very interesting.

[1] [http://inform-
fiction.org/zmachine/standards/z1point1/index....](http://inform-
fiction.org/zmachine/standards/z1point1/index.html)

~~~
protomyth
In the late 80's there was a company selling a database with a front end that
reminded me quite a bit of an Infocom game. I think the database was named
something really generic (Q&A).

~~~
pgrote
Cornerstone
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornerstone_(software)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornerstone_\(software\))
was the database Infocom released. Is that what you're thinking of?

It could also have been the first versions of Progress.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress_Software](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress_Software)

~~~
protomyth
It was 't from Infocom (thanks for that link). I just remember it weirded me
out and it had a really generic name.

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binarycrusader
If you enjoyed this article, consider supporting the author on Patreon:

[https://www.patreon.com/DigitalAntiquarian?ty=h](https://www.patreon.com/DigitalAntiquarian?ty=h)

Jimmy has done a non-trivial amount of work in bringing high-quality articles
about past gaming history and shared them for free with everyone.

~~~
sohkamyung
Agreed. I'm currently supporting him on Patreon because I enjoy the articles
he writes.

My preference on Patreon is to support people producing valuable articles for
free, enriching everybody. Locking them up in Patreon exclusive subscriptions
is not my preference.

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nevster
+1 for any link from HN to an article that mentions Wizardry!

