if-resources

(by Peer Schaefer, peer@wolldingwacht.de)


z-spec10.pdf: The Z-Machine Standard Document v1.0, converted to PDF

(including the proposal for v1.1 by K. Bracey and J. C. Penny, the Quetzal Save Standard v1.3b by Martin Frost and the Blorb IF Resource Collection Format Standard v1.1 by Andrew Plotkin)

The Z-Machine Standard Document (version 1.0) by Graham Nelson is the generally acknowledged specification of the Z-virtual-machine that was used by Infocom(R) in the 1980s and that is still used as a virtual machine for all interactive fiction (aka text-adventures) created with the famous Inform-compiler. A multi-pages HTML-version of the Standard Document v1.0 is available here. A proposal for an update to version 1.1 (drafted by Kevin Bracey and Jason C Penney) is currently under discussion and available in plain ASCII here. Then there is "Quetzal" by Martin Frost, that establishes a Z-machine Common Save-File Format Standard (v1.3b), which is available as a HTML-document here. And last but not least there is the IF Resource Collection Format Standard (Blorb) v1.1 by Andrew Plotkin, that is available in several formats here.

Since the available Z-Machine Standard Document is split-up into many HTML-files and the proposal for the Z-Machine Standard v1.1 is only available as plain ASCII, I've decided to convert these documents to a more convenient format. And since all four files are essential for everyone who wants to program a z-code-interpreter for any platform, I have compiled all together into one PDF that is available for download here. I hope that makes life easier for you implementors out there.

The PDF contains:

And here are the downloads:

The document source is also available here (Rich Text Format RTF, 221 kb ZIPed)

Error-reports, suggestions etc. welcome. Send to Peer Schaefer, peer@wolldingwacht.de.

I tried to contact all authors, but some e-mail-adresses were out of use and some didn't replied. I assume that everyone involved has no complaints, but if I'm wrong please drop me a line and I will remove this page immediately.


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Peer Schaefer's Interactive Fiction Resource Site / This page: The Z-Machine Standard Document converted to PDF / URL: www.wolldingwacht.de/if/z-spec.html / Last update: 28th March 2003