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             *  !Zip -- A Infocom Z-Code interpreter   *
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!Zip is a program that runs Infocom adventures in a window on the desktop.
It consistes of two parts: My frontend that does all the Risc-OS work (i.e.
the window and the TextScreen routines) and the actual interpreter which
was written by Mark Howell and has frontends for various machines including
IBM PC's, *NIX boxes, Amiga's etc.

If anyone has my port of InfoTaskForces interpreter (called !Infocom or
!AUInfocom, depending on which version you have) then you will see that
it is very similar to this program. Once I got Mark Howells code I found
it was so much easier to red and code around, as well as being considerably
more bug-free, I immediately changed over to using it, but basically kept
the same frontend code.

I want to improve this port to have drag and drop restore as well as the
auto-save as box like !AUInfocom, but this time having the code nicely
integrated into the zip source unlike the nasties I had to do to get the
ITF source to use RISC OS filing techniques. Apart from that the only other
things I want to add are the realtime support for Border Zone (a fairly
easy task) and outline font support to pretty the display up for people with
hi-res monitors (AA-Fonts are too hard to read clearly on low rez screens
generally)

To run an adventure all you have to do is double click on an infocom
adventure (filetyped 061)... Double clicking on the !Zip directory will
do nothing for now.

Inside the !Zip directory are three obey files "Big", "Small" and "80x24"
which simply swap the templates around. You can modify the templates
yourself to make a textscreen that is the right size for your screen, Icon
#1 is the only one that counts--resize that to whatever and the program will
automatically adjust its textarea to suit.

Note Well: You will have to get your own infocom adventures (I can
recommend the excellent Lost Treasures of Infocom I & II packages for
value for money) and move them onto the Arc...

Edouard Poor, September 6th, 1993.

--

    (Send all snail mail/money orders/cheques/cash to)
            Edouard Poor
            15 Stanley Pt Rd
            Devonport
            Auckland
            New Zealand

    (Email/uu-files may be addressed to)
            epoo1@cs.aukuni.ac.nz          [valid until at least march 1994]
            edouard@nacjack.gen.nz         [not checked very often]

    (voice line)
            +64 9 4450330