ZCut V1.1 -- extract Infocom story files

Written by Stefan Jokisch in 1998.  Based on work by Matthew T. Russotto,
Paul D. Doherty, Stephen Tjasink, Mark Howell and Michael Jenkin.

More precisely,

- Matthew Russotto decoded the Apple ][ V4/V5/V6 formats.
- Paul D. Doherty analyzed the C64/128 V3/V4/V5 formats.
- Stephen Tjasink decoded the Apple ][ V2/V3 format.
- Mark Howell worked out the IBM PC bootable disk V3 format.
- Michael Jenkin worked out the Atari 800/XL/XE V2/V3 format.
- Stefan Jokisch decoded the Amstrad CPC V3 format.

Related utilities are

GETZERO, to extract Zork Zero from Apple ][ disk image files (unreleased).
D64TOINF, to convert C64 disk image files to Z-code and vice versa.
AP2INF, to extract single sided Apple ][ games.
INFOREAD, to extract from IBM PC bootable disks (part of the ZTools).
ZOFFSET, to extract from single-sided Atari 800/XL/XE games.
ZHEADER2, to extract from double-sided Atari 800/XL/XE games.
INFOCUT, to strip excess bytes from a story file.
CHECK, to verify the checksum of a story file (part of the ZTools).

ZCut extracts Infocom story files (aka Z-code) from

- Amstrad CPC disk images [.DSK]
- Apple ][ disk images [.DSK, .NIB]
- Atari 800/XL/XE disk images [.ATR]
- Commodore 64/128 disk images [.D64]
- IBM PC bootable disks (MS-DOS version only)
- any file if the Z-code is stored in one piece

To run ZCut, list all input files and the desired name of the story file
on the command line.  For instance,

zcut deadline.atr story.dat
zcut beyond1.dsk beyond2.nib story.dat
zcut jigsaw.exe story.dat
zcut zork-3.d64 story.dat
zcut arthur1.dsk arthur2.dsk arthur3.dsk arthur4.dsk arthur5.dsk story.dat
zcut b: story.dat

The last example can be used on MS-DOS systems for bootable disks.

Hint: ZCut can be used to strip excess bytes off the end of a story file;
      this will even work for most old games.  Similarly, ZCut is able to
      verify the checksum of a game.  A clever syntax to do the latter is
      (on MS-DOS) "zcut story-file nul" because all data sent to nul will
      be discarded.

Please send bug reports, questions and comments to s.jokisch@avu.de.