FrotzS5 V1.8 - an interpreter for all Infocom games. Complies with standard 1.0 of Graham Nelson's specification. Written by Stefan Jokisch in 1995-7 for Dos and ported to the Psion Series 5 by Frédéric Bouvry (C) Copyright 1997-1999. Additional work and bug fixes by Simon Quinn. This port of Frotz is freeware, that means: -You may not make money with this software by selling it or by any other way. -If you want to put this software on a CD-Rom compilation, email me before to get my agreement. It shouldn't be a problem if you don't charge too much money for the compilation, go to http://www.palmtime.com/frotzs5.html for contact information. -You may not modify the original files. -I'm not responsible for any damage this program could cause to your palmtop or yourself. -But you can play for free and copy it for friends as long as you copy all the files included in this distribution. A good place to get stories is ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/infocom/ All the stories there ending with .z1 up to .z8 work. Some .z6 games, which rely on graphics, may not work. Also Infocom sometimes use .zip extensions for their z6 games, these work fine with Frotz. Another way to get stories is to buy compilation CD-Roms like 'The Masterpieces of Infocom': about 21$US for more than 30 stories + the original documentations and maps in Adobe Acrobat .pdf format (Activision who bought Infocom is still selling those compilations). Version Information ------------------- -Official FrotzS5 App UID is 0x1000055B -Since v1.1 different font sizes can be selected and the toolbar can be turned on/off thus the screen width may be less than 80 columns. ! The majority of the stories asks to Frotz what's the current number of columns then handles this correctly (or just responds 'screen to narrow' but this happens rarely). A few stories (well, I know only one: A Mind Forever Voyaging) don't handle correctly a screen width under about 70 columns so you should switch to e.g. mode 70x18 (without toolbar) for AMFV. Dynamic font change during a game is currently not possible. Use 'Terminate Story' or type 'quit' to change the font size between stories. The internal random numbers generator has been improved since v1.1 ! Some games record the screen width in their private memory space and this memory space is saved since your first 'save' operation (e.g.: The HitchHiker's Guide To The Galaxy) so you better select you favourite font/screen/toolbar size from the beginning or you may get problems with the title when changing the screen size and restoring a game started with a different screen size. Some games such as Sherlock use the Invisiclues and assume a screen height greater than the current one... same problem as AMFV (see above). -Since v1.2 you can put your stories and saved files anywhere. Frotz will record in his profile the latest place where you read a story and the place where you put the saved games. It works even on drive D: (Compact card). For owner of previous versions, you don't have to but you can move your C:\Frotz directory anywhere now. After the first 'Open Story', browse to your new folder where you moved your stories open one and Frotz will remember where they are for the next Open. The same applies for the save/restore operations. -Since v1.3 Frotz uses all the screen height of a Geofox palmtop. -Since v1.4 Frotz should now work on any sized screen, such as Revo and Psion7. No toolbar is available on the Revo due to the size of the screen. Changed by Simon Quinn -Since v1.5 Memory usage decreased by 2/3. To do this the number of Frotz undo buffers was reduced from 25 to 2, saving 900Kbytes! Rewrote screen display code for big performance boost. Cursor keys now work in Journey & Beyond Zork. Fixed key timer problem that was causing Arthur to crash. Fixed border graphics in Beyond Zork etc. Toolbar buttons tidied up for larger screens. Changed by Simon Quinn -Since v1.6 More speed ups for the screen display code. Fixed major Frotz engine bug when printing inverse text blocks that are taller than the screen, such as in Sherlock. Squashed a few small bugs. Changed by Simon Quinn. -Since v1.7 Fixed the problem where FrotzS5 would forget the Story and Save paths if they changed from the defaults. Thanks to Lasse Haataja for the fix. Changed by Simon Quinn. -Since v1.8 Now you can run multiple instances of FrotzS5, for example run a game and also run the Invisiclues. To run more than one instance press the Fn key while tapping the FrotzS5 icon on the Extras Bar. Changed by Simon Quinn. Install procedure: ------------------ The easiest and best installation is to use the Frotz SIS package. Otherwise do the following: The 4 distributed files are FROTZS5.APP, FROZS5.AIF, FROTZS5.RSC and FROTZS5.TXT 1) Make sure you can see the System folder on the Psion by using the check box in the System menu -> Tools -> Preferences -> Show 'System' folder. 2) Create a new folder called 'FrotzS5' under C:\System\Apps thus C:\System\Apps\FrotzS5 3) Copy all the files from the distribution to this folder with PsiWin. 4) Create the folders where you will place the stories and save your games. e.g.: C:\Documents\Frotz\Story, C:\Documents\Frotz\Save (or even on drive D:) 5) Put the story files you want to play in the folder you created for them. e.g.: C:\Documents\Frotz\Story 6) Now you should see the FrotzS5 Icon in the Extra Toolbar. 7) The first time you open a story, save a game or restore a game, you will have to browse to the folder you created but after that, Frotz will remember them. N.B.: The application can run on a CF card too, e.g.: D:\System\Apps\FrotzS5 Thanks to Stefan Jokisch, the author of Frotz, for giving his sources (Dos Frotz v2.32). Without him I wouldn't have made this port. Special Thanks to Ian Dean, the porter of Frotz to the WinCE palmtops (FrotzCE), for helping me to solve a difficult problem that you should better know when porting Frotz... Thanks to Steve Richardson for his support and bug reports. Thanks to David Isherwood for making the runtime help file of FrotzS5 (not yet included). Thanks to Adam Jackson for beta testing v1.2 Supports all games from V1 to V8. Many V6 graphical games work in text mode, such as Journey, Arthur and Shogun. Limitations in current version: No graphics, no sound. Known bugs: None Troubles: -Most games need between 300 and 600 Kbytes of RAM so if one doesn't start it is possible you don't have enough free memory. Documentation from Stefan Jokisch adapted to the Psion Series 5: ---------------------------------------------------------------- FROTZ V2.32 - an interpreter for all Infocom games. Complies with standard 1.0 of Graham Nelson's specification. Written by Stefan Jokisch in 1995-7 This program once started as a re-make of Mark Howell's Zip, but has grown into an utterly new interpreter. Frotz is freeware: It may be used and distributed freely provided no commercial profit is involved. (c) 1995-1997 Stefan Jokisch. Special keys: Ctrl-D - toggle debugging options Ctrl-S - help on hot keys Ctrl-N - new game (restart) Ctrl-P - turn on input line playback Ctrl-R - toggle input line recording on/off Ctrl-U - multiple undo, works even for old V1 to V4 games Ctrl-X - exit game Psion Shortcuts are displayed in the menu of FrotzS5 like e.g.: Ctrl-E - exit from FrotzS5 Other keys: cursor left - move one character to the left cursor right - move one character to the right arrow left - move one word to the left arrow right - move one word to the right home - move to beginning of line end - move to end of line backspace - delete character to the left shift-delete - delete character below cursor escape - delete whole input line cursor up - get previous command cursor down - get next command tab - word completion (like "tcsh" under Unix) e.g.: 'exa' then TAB displays 'examine' When you need to type an unpleasantly long word, try to type the first three or four letters then press the tabulator key. If you are lucky, Frotz fills in some or all of the missing letters. A high beep noise indicates that the word is ambiguous; a low beep indicates that it does not exist. Apart from that, you can also use the history feature to get to previous input lines. Type the beginning of the input line you are looking for, then use cursor up/down to scroll through all input lines matching that prefix. e.g: type 'lo' then arrow up/down to retrieve all the commands that you entered that begin with the letters 'lo'. Note: No beep in the Psion Series 5 version. Questions and answers: Q: What is Frotz? A: Frotz runs text adventures which come in so-called story files: ZORK1.DAT, TRINITY.DAT, CURSES.Z5, JIGSAW.Z8, ARTHUR.ZIP etc. Q: Where can I find story files to use with Frotz? A: First, you can use the files from your original Infocom games. It is possible to play Atari ST, Amiga or Macintosh games on your PC once you manage to transfer the story files. Some people even extracted story files from old Atari 800, Apple II and C-64 disks (ask your local 8bit guru). Second, there is an increasing number of new games available on the Internet. Check the if-archive at ftp.gmd.de. Q: Why does Frotz stop with an error message? A: It might have detected a bug in the story file other interpreters overlooked. It's also possible that the story file is corrupt; be sure to download story files in binary mode, especially when you use a WWW browser. List of fatal errors: - "Bad stack frame" - "Byte swapped story file" - "Call to illegal address" - "Call to non-routine" [1] - "Cannot open story file" - "Division by zero" - "Error reading save file" - "Illegal attribute" - "Illegal object" [2] - "Illegal window" - "Illegal window property" - "Jump to illegal address" - "Nesting stream #3 too deep" - "No such property" - "Out of memory" - "Print at illegal address" - "Stack overflow" [3] - "Stack underflow" [4] - "Store out of dynamic memory" - "Story file read error" - "Text buffer overflow" - "Unknown opcode" - "Unknown Z-code version" [1] The first byte of a routine must be less than 16. [2] In V4 and above, object numbers > 2000 are considered illegal. [3] Checked on every call instruction. [4] Checked on every return from a subroutine. [1] Underlined text is shown in emphasis colour (-e switch). [2] Boldface text is available using the -T switch. [3] ISO Latin 1 characters are replaced with suitable substitutes. Acknowledgements: Many thanks to Paul D. Doherty for his continuing support of this project. Thanks to everyone who sent bug reports, contributions or helpful hints (in alphabetical order): Thomas Biskup, Ian Carpenter, Graeme Cree, Jason Dyer, Carl Edman, Julian Eggebrecht, Bernhard Fuchs, Joe Hachem, John Kennedy, Kirk Klobe, Marnix Klooster, John Mackin, Paul O'Brian, Magnus Olsson, Barry Prescott, L. Ross Raszewski, Ambat Sasi Nair, Alan Sherrod, Linards Ticmanis and Paolo Vece. Last but not least, thanks to the porters: David Kinder (Amiga), Rich Lawrence (Windows 95/NT), Andrew Holdsworth (RiscOS), Christos Dimitrakakis (HP-UX), Christopher J. Madsen (OS/2), Galen Hazelwood (Unix curses library), Ian Dean (Windows CE)... Note: ( I should come here :-) Fred) Executables are available from ftp.gmd.de and from http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Heights/3222/frotz.html which is the Frotz home page maintained by Chris Madsen.