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Infocom Games and the FreHD?

Patrick Bureau said:
well you could use a jcl file that does that attrib then launches the game ? it would be a work around no ?

such as PlayZork1/jcl:

ATTRIB ZORK1/DAT (USER="SMC", OWNER="SMC", PROT=EXEC)
ZORK1

and launch game with DO playzork1/jcl

rename repeat for other games
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Oh, that's why things didn't work on my FreHD with the Infocom games.

I ended up just making diskettes from the images I downloaded then just boot with the diskettes.

That really wasn't what I wanted to do in the long term since sooner or later the diskettes will fail and I'll be unable to get more.

This is good to know. Thanks.
 
John(Wales-UK) said:
I have a Model IV LS-DOS FreHD image with what you are looking for. Use the LS-DOS image, run F4/cmd, g for games, a for apps, u for utilities, pages for each go from 0 to 9. F4 is a simple menu front end that I have written.

Link to contents of FreHD SD: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AofvzuHLATI_gv4-4cJhCVfLabFKQw?e=dLxic0
Click to expand...

This is exactly what I was looking for. That menu system is perfect, thanks for making that and sharing! I'll modify the one you put the infocom games on and see if I can get a few of the other infocom games they made that were not released for the TRS-80 working as well.
 
John(Wales-UK) said:
You are very welcome. Please keep me posted.
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Looks like the only working one missing is Spellbreaker which is easy enough to copy over and add into your awesome menu program.

All the other Infocom games look like they're z4 or later which clearly don't seem to be supported on the trs-80 interpreter (obviously because Infocom abandoned the platform during zcode 3 days... oh well).

Question: What is W)rite and Z (Auto/Manual) commands?
 
Hi. Thanks for that, just added Spellbreaker and updated the shared files. As to the Z and W)rite command, I sometimes toggle to manual using Z, just so I can move things around within a page and not update the /dat file until I W)rite.
 
John(Wales-UK) said:
I have a Model IV LS-DOS FreHD image with what you are looking for. Use the LS-DOS image, run F4/cmd, g for games, a for apps, u for utilities, pages for each go from 0 to 9. F4 is a simple menu front end that I have written.

Link to contents of FreHD SD: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AofvzuHLATI_gv4-4cJhCVfLabFKQw?e=dLxic0
Click to expand...

Greetings. Thanks for sharing your collection.

I've grabbed your files and have yet to manage a successful 4p FreHD boot. Can you tell me which image is placed on the sdcard? I tried HARD4-0 and booted off a floppy disk created from ld3-531.dsk image using a Greaseweazle. The floppy booted fine but did not recognize the hard disk. Can you 'spain for me Lucy'?

Thanks!
 
Fooser said:
Greetings. Thanks for sharing your collection.

I've grabbed your files and have yet to manage a successful 4p FreHD boot. Can you tell me which image is placed on the sdcard? I tried HARD4-0 and booted off a floppy disk created from ld3-531.dsk image using a Greaseweazle. The floppy booted fine but did not recognize the hard disk. Can you 'spain for me Lucy'?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

He mentioned in the message you quoted, use the "lsdos" image. Use the file with that name.
 
Probably worth mentioning that I wrote F4/CMD (FreHD software menu) on LSDOS to run on a Model IV. Since the 4P has no Model III ROM there will be issues with Model III games.
 
ngtwolf said:
He mentioned in the message you quoted, use the "lsdos" image. Use the file with that name.
Click to expand...

I interpret that to mean rename the lsdos image to HARD4-0 which I believe is a requirement of FreHD. I tried that as well, booted off the ld3-531.dsk. I also booted off both the FreHD Model 4p diskette and Model III diskette I received from Ian. I've tried holding down the F3 and P, loading ModelA.III, not loading the ROM, and said the magic chant, all to no avail.
 
John(Wales-UK) said:
Probably worth mentioning that I wrote F4/CMD (FreHD software menu) on LSDOS to run on a Model IV. Since the 4P has no Model III ROM there will be issues with Model III games.
Click to expand...

I guess loading the modela.iii file while attempting to boot the hard drive complicates things.
 
For those who want access to more infocom games on their model 3 and weren't aware, I've just release an updated version of my model 3 infocom game player. With your FreHD, you'll now be able to play (at enjoyable speeds) the following on the Model III
* Nord and Bert Couldn't Make Head or Tail of It
* Sherlock
* Arthur: The Quest for Excalibur
* Zork: The Great Undiscovered Underground
As well as many more post-Infocom era games.
There are a number of Infocom games that are too large for the 48K memory footprint or the screen size. For those, a Model 4 is needed (along with the model 4 version of the software).

Details of the latest version are available from:
https://gitlab.com/sijnstra1/m3zvm

With the latest /CMD file in the zout directory on that site.

Let me know if you have any questions about it!
 
John(Wales-UK) said:
Probably worth mentioning that I wrote F4/CMD (FreHD software menu) on LSDOS to run on a Model IV. Since the 4P has no Model III ROM there will be issues with Model III games.
Click to expand...

Hey John,

Been a couple years on this but had some renewed interest. One, did you get a chance to make a Model 3 version? Friend of mine (who will likely post here) just got a Model III and was looking for that. As well, have you looked into updating the image(s) to work with the new software that sijnstra posted here. I was going to look into it myself but thought i'd ask if you have done anything more? It's possible there isn't enough disk space on the current images to support adding these later games, though?
 
@sijnstra thank you very much for this new release of the Z-code interpreter for the Model III. After much failure and learning, I was able to create a new HDV image which can be booted in the FreHD and includes this new M3ZVM release in addition to every Infocom game which will play on the Model III. Download it here:

https://www.fascinationsoftware.com/media/Infocom3.zip

There are 4 partitions on the disk. Drive :0 is the LDOS 5.3 operating system and also includes IMPORT2, EXPORT2, VHDUTL, and the M3ZVM interpreter. Drive :1 (called "MAIN") contains all of the playable zcode games from the "Classic Text Adventure Masterpieces" CD. Drive :2 (called "NEW") contains all of the games which had later (newer) releases than the version included in the MAIN partition. Lastly, Drive :3 (called "INVIS") contains all of the playable infocom zcode games which include the Invisiclues help system; these are all .z5 files. To run any of the games, just boot the Infocom3 drive image and run the M3ZVM program with a single command-line parameter which is the filespec of the game file to run.

For example, to run the Masterpieces version of the game:

M3ZVM HITCHIKE/Z3

Or to run the newest release:

M3ZVM HITCHIKE/Z3:2

Or to run the Invisiclues release:

M3ZVM HITCHIKE/Z5
 
SirRichard42 said:
@sijnstra thank you very much for this new release of the Z-code interpreter for the Model III. After much failure and learning, I was able to create a new HDV image which can be booted in the FreHD and includes this new M3ZVM release in addition to every Infocom game which will play on the Model III. Download it here:

https://www.fascinationsoftware.com/media/Infocom3.zip

There are 4 partitions on the disk. Drive :0 is the LDOS 5.3 operating system and also includes IMPORT2, EXPORT2, VHDUTL, and the M3ZVM interpreter. Drive :1 (called "MAIN") contains all of the playable zcode games from the "Classic Text Adventure Masterpieces" CD. Drive :2 (called "NEW") contains all of the games which had later (newer) releases than the version included in the MAIN partition. Lastly, Drive :3 (called "INVIS") contains all of the playable infocom zcode games which include the Invisiclues help system; these are all .z5 files. To run any of the games, just boot the Infocom3 drive image and run the M3ZVM program with a single command-line parameter which is the filespec of the game file to run.

For example, to run the Masterpieces version of the game:

M3ZVM HITCHIKE/Z3

Or to run the newest release:

M3ZVM HITCHIKE/Z3:2

Or to run the Invisiclues release:

M3ZVM HITCHIKE/Z5
Click to expand...
Thank you for compiling that hard disk image! Nicely done! Great to see it all laid out well with the Masterpieces and Invisiclues versions. I stumbled across a few bugs in the "Final Internal Release" versions before I realised the Masterpieces were absolutely the way to go.

FYI - I'm currently working through finalising an update which will allow Border Zone as well as the first 3/4 of Shogun to execute on the M3 as well. Small speed improvement also included. Stay tuned!
 
SirRichard42 said:
@sijnstra thank you very much for this new release of the Z-code interpreter for the Model III. After much failure and learning, I was able to create a new HDV image which can be booted in the FreHD and includes this new M3ZVM release in addition to every Infocom game which will play on the Model III. Download it here:

https://www.fascinationsoftware.com/media/Infocom3.zip

There are 4 partitions on the disk. Drive :0 is the LDOS 5.3 operating system and also includes IMPORT2, EXPORT2, VHDUTL, and the M3ZVM interpreter. Drive :1 (called "MAIN") contains all of the playable zcode games from the "Classic Text Adventure Masterpieces" CD. Drive :2 (called "NEW") contains all of the games which had later (newer) releases than the version included in the MAIN partition. Lastly, Drive :3 (called "INVIS") contains all of the playable infocom zcode games which include the Invisiclues help system; these are all .z5 files. To run any of the games, just boot the Infocom3 drive image and run the M3ZVM program with a single command-line parameter which is the filespec of the game file to run.

For example, to run the Masterpieces version of the game:

M3ZVM HITCHIKE/Z3

Or to run the newest release:

M3ZVM HITCHIKE/Z3:2

Or to run the Invisiclues release:

M3ZVM HITCHIKE/Z5
Click to expand...
Well that took a lot longer than expected.... I've now published the update so it performs a little better, supports transcript properly, and also now has enough room to play BorderZone as well as (most of) Shogun. Note with these two and any of the larger/more recent games, a hard disk/FreHD or similar is highly recommended. There's a CHANGELOG with a high level view of the improvements.

Let me know how you go with it - it's available for download here
 
sijnstra said:
Well that took a lot longer than expected.... I've now published the update so it performs a little better, supports transcript properly, and also now has enough room to play BorderZone as well as (most of) Shogun. Note with these two and any of the larger/more recent games, a hard disk/FreHD or similar is highly recommended. There's a CHANGELOG with a high level view of the improvements.

Let me know how you go with it - it's available for download here
Click to expand...

This is great; thanks for the update to your Z-code interpreter. I have updated the disk image (Infocom3.zip) at the link in my message above to include this new release of M3ZVM.
 
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