Guest ScreamingFalcon Posted April 2, 2008 Report Share Posted April 2, 2008 (edited) Way too much free time on my hands at work, and want to play some INFOCOM games between calls. Anyone got a good Z Machine Interpreter for WM5 that works on a QVGA screen? Edited April 2, 2008 by ScreamingFalcon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ScreamingFalcon Posted April 2, 2008 Report Share Posted April 2, 2008 Actually, I might have something here that may interest some of you porters out there, an interpreter for Windows Mobile Standard edition. It looks pretty beefy, so it looks like a great place to start! Its called FrostZ and here's the link to the guy's site. http://jpdefault.altervista.org/?p=software&id=frostz It looks like the iPhone version of Frotz, but this one came first! Take THAT, iPhone! He included his source code on the site, so have at it, porters! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ScreamingFalcon Posted April 5, 2008 Report Share Posted April 5, 2008 Hey masterall, you think you could work with this emulator? I love your PocketSNES emu. I would love to see what you can do with this already beefy program on a QVGA setup. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ScreamingFalcon Posted April 23, 2008 Report Share Posted April 23, 2008 Well, new update, I had been in email contact with someone who was working on a retooling of this interpreter because he didn't like the way it handled certain aspects of the emulations. He even sent me a beta build of his latest version, but it wouldn't run because it was unable to display on a landscape setting automatically. So, back to square one, I suppose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Racer_X Posted May 1, 2008 Report Share Posted May 1, 2008 Way too much free time on my hands at work, and want to play some INFOCOM games between calls. Anyone got a good Z Machine Interpreter for WM5 that works on a QVGA screen? I'm really with you on this. I just got a Blackjack II and that built-in KB is just calling out to me for some classic on the go interactive fiction. I've got a ton of development experience but ZERO on the smartphone. If masterall or one of the other gurus isn't working on it, I could give it a shot but I'd need some sort of getting started setup... are the Smartphone development tools free? I know embedded VC++ 4 was... how about a GCC port? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ScreamingFalcon Posted May 20, 2008 Report Share Posted May 20, 2008 I'm really with you on this. I just got a Blackjack II and that built-in KB is just calling out to me for some classic on the go interactive fiction. I've got a ton of development experience but ZERO on the smartphone. If masterall or one of the other gurus isn't working on it, I could give it a shot but I'd need some sort of getting started setup... are the Smartphone development tools free? I know embedded VC++ 4 was... how about a GCC port? Actually, if you dig around on the Microsoft Smartphone website, I think you might find some tools there for software development. I thought I saw a template or two for different models of SmartPhone emulations or something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ScreamingFalcon Posted July 12, 2008 Report Share Posted July 12, 2008 No new news to report on anything from my friend who was working on this, anyone else trying to put one of these together for QVGA smartphones? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest macznik Posted August 24, 2008 Report Share Posted August 24, 2008 (edited) Bump? Anyone? Someone please do it, I beg of you! Freaking iPHONE and the Nintendo DS have one. How come there's not a single one for WM6, QWERTY, QVGA devices? :D Edited August 24, 2008 by macznik Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ScreamingFalcon Posted February 6, 2009 Report Share Posted February 6, 2009 Boing! Still no news on my end! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ScreamingFalcon Posted March 30, 2009 Report Share Posted March 30, 2009 Can we at least get a report from someone working on this as a project at all? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest AdamDawes Posted June 20, 2009 Report Share Posted June 20, 2009 Can we at least get a report from someone working on this as a project at all? I found this frustrating too. I recently bought myself an HTC Touch Pro 2 which of course has a nice keyboard, and excitedly set about looking for a ZMachine interpreter. I found Frostz and FrotzCE and all the others, but none of them worked properly on my phone. So I set about creating my own version. I've only been working on it a couple of days, and I've been porting Matt Kimmel's Java interpreter "Zax" into C#. I finally got it compiling this morning and set it loose upon Zork I. To my surprise it fired up straight away and displayed the opening paragraphs of the game. I could "open mailbox", "get leaflet" and "read leaflet" without any problem. But when I try to "look" it tells me, "I don't know the word 'ook'". Obviously still needs some work. :D Assuming I manage to work out what's wrong (which isn't guaranteed as I'm no expert on the way the Z-Machine works) I'll get the UI sorted out nicely so that it works on everything from QVGA to WVGA in both portrait and landscape and will then release it as freeware. I'll post here if I make any progess. Can't promise but I'll do my best. WM devices need a good Infocom interpreter, I'm amazed there's not already one that works well... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ScreamingFalcon Posted June 22, 2009 Report Share Posted June 22, 2009 I actually think that all the info on the specs and limitations of the Z machine are out there on the web somewhere. A good place to start might be the Inform site or the Interactive Fiction Database. They have tons of resources there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest AdamDawes Posted June 23, 2009 Report Share Posted June 23, 2009 I actually think that all the info on the specs and limitations of the Z machine are out there on the web somewhere. A good place to start might be the Inform site or the Interactive Fiction Database. They have tons of resources there. Well the advantage of starting with an existing source base is that I don't need to invest the significant amount of time and effort needed to get an interpreter up and running, someone else has already done that for me. The disadvantage is that I've no idea how all that code works, so anything that doesn't work is much harder to track down. Anyway, I fixed the "ook" problem and Zork I is fully playable now. It has a couple of oddities with regards to quoting user-entered words back to you (if I enter "dance", it says, "I don't know the word 'danc '" which isn't quite right) but these all appear in the original Java Zax engine too so they're not a problem with my conversion. Playing Inform-created games (post Infocom) these problems don't occur. So the game engine itself is working but the user interface needs a lot of tidying up. I'll post here again as and when I make any worthwhile progress. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest AdamDawes Posted June 27, 2009 Report Share Posted June 27, 2009 I'll post here again as and when I make any worthwhile progress. Version 1.0 of PocketZax is now available, and seems to be working pretty well! It certainly has room for refinement but that can come in future versions. You can download PocketZax from my web site, http://www.adamdawes.com Please let me know what you think! Adam. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Genix9 Posted June 27, 2009 Report Share Posted June 27, 2009 Version 1.0 of PocketZax is now available, and seems to be working pretty well! It certainly has room for refinement but that can come in future versions. You can download PocketZax from my web site, http://www.adamdawes.com Please let me know what you think! Adam. Excellent start, nicely done! Some initial feedback; - Typing "save" then cancelling shoots out a NullReferenceException error - Is it possible to have Save/Load as options from the menu bar instead of having to type these in each time? Maybe shortcuts for some of the more common tings like look, take, go <direction>, etc? Zroft-PPC had some good ideas along these lines, but still needs some work to be be more friendly :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest AdamDawes Posted June 27, 2009 Report Share Posted June 27, 2009 Excellent start, nicely done! Some initial feedback; - Typing "save" then cancelling shoots out a NullReferenceException error - Is it possible to have Save/Load as options from the menu bar instead of having to type these in each time? Maybe shortcuts for some of the more common tings like look, take, go <direction>, etc? Zroft-PPC had some good ideas along these lines, but still needs some work to be be more friendly ;) Hi Genix9, Thanks for the message and glad you like it so far. :D I actually just spotted a nastier bug which may well affect anyone that's tried it so far. When you close PocketZax by any means other than the File/Exit menu option (e.g., from the Running Programs list) it actually leaves the program active, waiting for input (which of course it never receives). When you next try to launch PocketZax, Windows Mobile can see that the previous version is already running, but its window has closed so you can't see it. So it's effectively impossible to launch again after you've closed it once. :D I've fixed this and have uploaded a new version to my website. I advise anyone that has already downloaded it to update to this version. If you already have the old version running and can't launch it again, you'll need to soft-reset to clear the app out of memory. Sorry about that! The new version has a version number of 1.0.0.1 -- you can check on the About screen to see if you're running the new version. I also fixed the Null Reference exception you mentioned on saving. It may be possible to get things like loading and saving working in the menu, I'd certainly like to be able to do that. I need to see how well I can interact with the Z-Machine "cpu" from outside, normally it initiates that kind of operation. I'm sure it must be possible, just need to work out how. :D Thanks and regards, Adam. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Genix9 Posted June 29, 2009 Report Share Posted June 29, 2009 ... The new version has a version number of 1.0.0.1 -- you can check on the About screen to see if you're running the new version. ... Downloaded and installed :D . Off to Zambia on business for the rest of the week, so should have some time to kick it around between things while I'm there and let you know how it goes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ScreamingFalcon Posted June 29, 2009 Report Share Posted June 29, 2009 Version 1.0 of PocketZax is now available, and seems to be working pretty well! It certainly has room for refinement but that can come in future versions. You can download PocketZax from my web site, http://www.adamdawes.com Please let me know what you think! Adam. And for those of us without the luxury of a touchscreen, fret not! I emailed Adam about it and he has informed me that he is working to convert it to Standard! Just hope he works in some of the Z6 version enhancements from Frostz! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest AdamDawes Posted July 5, 2009 Report Share Posted July 5, 2009 And for those of us without the luxury of a touchscreen, fret not! I emailed Adam about it and he has informed me that he is working to convert it to Standard! Just hope he works in some of the Z6 version enhancements from Frostz! PocketZax v1.1 is now available to download from my web site. It now included support for smartphone devices, yay! A number of other enhancements and fixes are present too, all the details are on my web site at http://www.adamdawes.com. Have fun! Adam. http://www.adamdawes.com http://www.icangames.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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