========================================================================== DLGZMachine v1.02, by Mike Oliphant Copyright (c) 1992, all rights reserved For use with DLG Professional v.992 or later ========================================================================== It always frustrated me that the only thing that was keeping DLG sysops from running Infocom adventure games online was the fact that the games opened up their own windows. When people were told that DLG could run any program that ran in a CLI, many of them asked whether Infocom games would work. Unfortunately, I had to tell them that they wouldn't. Well, with DLGZMachine they now will. License and Disclaimer ====================== DLGZMachine is BeerWare. The concept is simple -- if you like DLGZMachine and we ever meet, you can buy me a beer. You are free to copy and distribute the DLGZMachine archive under the following conditions: the original archive and this documentation must be remain intact and unaltered. DLGZMachine must not be sold for profit or included in any commercial or shareware product without the express written permission of Mike Oliphant. DLGZMachine may be included in public domain collections (such as those put out by Fred Fish) but no fee over and above reasonable media replication costs may be charged. Mike Oliphant will in no event be liable for any direct, indirect, or consequential damages to any equipment, software or data, arising from the use of this software; the entire risk as to its quality, performance, or fitness for any particular purpose is assumed by the end user. How to use DLGZMachine ====================== It's quite simple, really. Simply create a menu entry for each Infocom game you want to run online. The menu entry should be configured as a normal DLG module would be (respond NO to CLI mode) and should be run in OVERLAY mode. Also, set broadcast messages to pend - DLGZMachine handles them itself. The usage for the program is: DLGZMachine where is the full path the an Infocom game data file (usually called "Story.data" or ".data", and is the name of the save file. DLGZMachine can be run from a DLG menu as an executable. For example: DLGZMachine Games:infocom/Zork/Zork1.data user:%UNAME/zork1.save You could also run DLGZMachine from a menu script that changes to the user's directory. For example: exe cd user:%UNAME exe Games:DLGZachine Games:infocom/Zork/Zork1.data zork1.save Compatibility ============= Running a game under DLGZmachine differs from normal operation in two ways: - DLGZMachine doesn't print the room name and score at the top of the screen. This is not implemented in order to keep DLGZmachine compatible with all terminal programs. You can just type 'Score' to get the score anyway. - DLGZMachine won't let the user save to a named file. It only saves to the file specified on the command line. Other Stuff =========== DLGZMachine is heavily based on zmachine, an infocom game interpreter written for minix/unix systems by Matthias Pfaller. I take credit only for the DLG port - I didn't do the hard stuff. Many thanks to Matthias for his wonderful program. Do not, I repeat DO NOT use this program with data files for games that you have not purchased. There is no excuse for this, particularly since The Lost Treasures of Infocom, a reasonably priced collection of 20 adventures, is available for the Amiga. Use this program only in ways that are legally justified by your ownership of the Infocom games. How to contact that Mike Oliphant guy ===================================== Any questions, comments, suggestions, death threats, etc. can be sent to me in the following ways: FidoNet: 1:202/503 Internet: oliphant@tptdev.cts.com Snail: 3819-E Miramar St La Jolla, CA 92037 USA Acknowledgements ================ DLG Professional BB/OS by TelePro Technologies DLGZMachine by Mike Oliphant Infocom adventures by Infocom The Lost Treasures of Infocom by Activision zmachine by Matthias Pfaller