- Yet another abuse of the Z-Machine
A nostalgic diversion by David Magnus Ledgard with a large portion
of the code shamelessly borrowed from Torbjörn Andersson, a
tiny tiny portion being lifted from Infocom's "The Lurking Horror".
Release 1 / Serial number 990524 / Inform v6.15
>LOOK
This is a storage room. It contains an incredible assemblage of discarded junk. Some of it is so old and mouldering that you can't be sure where one bit of junk stops and the next begins. It's piled to the ceiling on ancient, rotting pallets. A narrow path winds eastward through the junk.
>SEARCH JUNK
You find many worthless items of hardware, old discarded memos and papers, but nothing of any use or value. But wait...
What's that in the corner? A lesser adventurer may have passed this by but not you. It seems to be an old Commodore PET computer and looks like it just might work. Next to the computer are two tapes one with the word "Zombies" scrawled on it in Biro. The other one is labeled "Wrap". Behind the computer on the wall is a power outlet.
>EXAMINE COMPUTER
In computer years this computer is older than Noah's Ark, but in actual years it is a little over two decades old. It consists of a monochrome monitor, tape deck, keyboard (with lots of funny little symbols on the letter keys including hearts, diamonds, spades, clubs, and corners, sides and crosses to allow the user to draw boxes on the screen), on/off switch and power cable; all build into one convenient trapezoidal unit. Performance wise it uses an 8 Bit MOS 6502 processor, has a whopping 4K of memory and the BASIC language on a built in ROM.
>PLUG POWER CABLE INTO POWER OUTLET
Done.
>TURN COMPUTER ON
You switch the computer on.
The screen lights up and the word "Ready." appears in bright green text with a flashing green cursor beneath it.
>PUT ZOMBIES TAPE IN TAPE DECK
(Taking the Zombies Tape first)
Done.
>TYPE LOAD "ZOMBIES" AND PRESS PLAY ON TAPE DECK
Done.
Done.
The word "Loading" appears on the screen and the tape starts spinning.
>WAIT.
The tape is still spinning but not much else is happening.
>WAIT.
The tape is still spinning but not much else is happening.
>WAIT.
The tape is still spinning but not much else is happening.
>WAIT.
At last the tape stops spinning and the word "Ready." appears on the screen.
>TYPE RUN
The screen displays, "Do you want (s)hallow or (d)eep pits?"