Zork for the PDP-11 / RT-11 recreated

I do know it is a bizarre one, however I’ve all the time needed to run Infocom video games from ever since I discovered it was a factor.

I do know you perhaps considering of the FORTRAN port of the total Zork sport, which does run on the identical system. However that is NOT the FORTRAN reverse engineered sport, slightly it’s a port of the Z-Machine to the RT-11 / PDP-11.

Additionally that is NOT a third get together reverse engineering effort, it’s the official Infocom Z-Machine supply.

;       Proprietary documentation of:
;
;               Infocom, Inc.
;               55 Wheeler St.
;               Cambridge, MA 02138
;
;       Copyright (C) 1982, 1983 Infocom, Inc.  All rights reserved.

Sure it’s the actual deal!

Okay so what or the place to do that?! First you want SIMH or every other good PDP-11 emulator, a duplicate of RT-11, and naturally the supply to the interpreter oddly sufficient named PDP11.ZIP. Simply needless to say that is NOT a pk-zip file, it’s a textual content file. It’s Macro-11 assembler supply.

First you want a quite simple config/kind in to the SIMH PDP-11 emulator:

connect rk0 rtv4_rk.dsk
connect ptr pdp11.zip
boot rk

All being effectively it is best to boot into RT-11.

Now we copy the supply into the machine via the paper tape reader. Simply kind in ‘COPY PC: ZIP.MAC’

.COPY PC: ZIP.MAC
 Recordsdata copied:
PC:            to DK:ZIP.MAC

.

This may create a .mac or macro assembler supply file. The extension issues as it can inform the compiler what file it’s and what to do. However fortunately it is a single file, and assembles fairly simply. As a tip to Unix folks, I discovered that making the meeting supply in MS-DOS CR/LF made life simpler.

Compiling & linking may be very easy

See Also

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.COMPILE ZIP.MAC
ERRORS DETECTED:  0

.LINK ZIP.OBJ

. 

Now we have to import a sport file. I often take a look at with Planetfall, so I grabbed the info file, and positioned it into the working listing after which connected it to the emulator

Simulation stopped, PC: 152644 (BR 152622)
sim> att ptr planetfa
sim> c


.COPY PC: PLANET.IML
 Recordsdata copied:
PC:            to DK:PLANET.IML

.

Discover the filenames are brief, very 8.3 for some unusual coincidence! Additionally I named it planet.iml, as that’s what the interpreter is anticipating. Now we are able to simply run the zip and level it to the sport knowledge file!

.RUN ZIP
Line width (default is 80, finish with LF for standing line):
File identify (present default is DK:$GAME$.IML) *dk:planet.iml
PLANETFALL
Infocom interactive fiction - a science fiction story
Copyright (c) 1983 by Infocom, Inc. All rights reserved.
PLANETFALL is a trademark of Infocom, Inc.
Launch 37 / Serial quantity 851003

And there we go! We at the moment are working Planetfall on our simulated PDP-11!

There may be fairly just a few nice 80’s systems in the github repository, I’ve little doubt the remaining will be constructed, however I assumed I’d sort out a system that was one other bigfoot, a factor of pure legend!