Hello reader!

The program "dsk2infocom" contained herewithin has been hacked together
to allow you to transfer Infocom datafiles from your old C-64 disks.
Once transfered, you can play these datafiles on most systems, using one
of the many Infocom interpreters available in the Public Domain.


Contents:

    dsk2infocom.c       Extracts an Infocom datafile from a disk image
                        of a Commodore-64 Infocom disk.

    zip2dsk.c           Converts a disk image created with "ZipCode II"
                        to the standard format required by "dsk2infocom".


What hardware is required?

    To extract the datafiles from your Infocom disks you need

    a)    a working Commodore-64 computer (or equivalent)

    b)    a working 1541 floppy (or equivalent)

    c)    some way to transfer files from C-64 disks to your UNIX system
          (or wherever you have your C compiler).  You can do this
          transfer using a modem or a null modem connection, or you can
          hook up your 1541 to an Amiga or a PC.


How do I use the extraction program?

    It is very simple: just create a disk image of the C-64 disk and run
    "dsk2infocom" on it.  That's all.  "dsk2infocom" calculates the file
    length from the header.  It also calculates the checksum and informs
    you if the Infocom disk was corrupt.


How do I get a "disk image"?

    That's the hard part, actually.  There are countless methods to do 
    this.  For example, you could write a program on the C-64 that
    reads every block from the Infocom disk and sends the contents via
    the RS-232 port to another computer.  The required disk image format
    is a raw image of the whole disk, beginning with track 1 sector 0 
    and ending with track 35 sector 16.  The length of such a disk image
    should be 174848 bytes (683 blocks * 256 bytes).

    If you don't want to program on your C-64, I suggest you use the
    program "ZipCode II" to create the disk image for you.  You should be
    able to find that program at the same place where you found this one.

    First you have to install "ZipCode II" on a C-64 disk following the
    instructions in the zipcode archive.  Then just follow the
    instructions within ZipCode and create a disk image of the Infocom
    disk.  Once you have it (it consists of four files named 
    "[1-4]!filename"), transfer it to your UNIX system.  Run "zip2dsk"
    on the four image files to create a standard disk image.  Run
    "dsk2infocom".  Voila.


If you find any bugs or have problems with above instructions, just drop
me a line.  Enjoy!

P. D. Doherty  <h0142kdd@rz.hu-berlin.de>                  August 4, 1993