9 May
2005
9 May
'05
7:55 a.m.
Subject: Re: Infocom on PDP-11
From: Vintage Computer Festival <vcf at siconic.com>
Date: Mon, 09 May 2005 07:00:44 -0700 (PDT)
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at
classiccmp.org>
On Mon, 9 May 2005, Christian Corti wrote:
> Porting a Z-Code interpreter to a new machine is a nice exercise. In my
> case I ported the Infocom interpreter from the InfoTaskforce (written in
> C) to the IBM 5110 (yes, the 5110, not the 5150) in machine language (yes,
> you can program that beast in machine language, it has a very nice
> instruction set IMHO). The binary's size is only 9.5kB and will run any V3
> games. It includes save/restore, a paging mechanism for fetching needed
> non-resident code parts from disk (and throwing out LRU ones), line
> wrapping / 'more'-style pausing for the 64x16 display etc.
> The interpreter requires at least one 5114 disk drive and 16kB of RWS. If
> more RWS is available, less page swapping is needed during the game.
Well if you can do that then PDP-8 is doable. The constraints there is
much of the "core" interpreter must fit in the 4KW Field and have the
guts needed to do the EMA management for Field linkage. Definately a
assembly languge project.
One note it would coolest with TU55/56 dectape rolling for swapping
but for speed the RK-08 or other databreak disk would be interesting.
Allison
Allison