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From: svanegmo@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca (Stephen Van Egmond)
Subject: rec.games.int-fiction updated FAQ beta part 2
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Here is part 2!
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From: Stephen Van Egmond
To: svanegmo@uwaterloo.ca
Subject: rgif 2
Date: July 16, 1995 21:34PM

A strange little man in a long cloak appears suddenly in the room.
He is wearing a high pointed hat embroidered with astrological
signs.  He has a long, stringy, and unkempt beard.

The Wizard draws forth his wand and waves it in your direction.
It begins to glow with a faint blue glow.  The Wizard, in a deep
and resonant voice, speaks the word "FAQ!"  He cackles gleefully.

As in a dream, you see yourself tumbling down a great, dark staircase.
All about you are shadowy images of struggles against fierce opponents
and diabolical traps.  These give way to another round of images:  of
imposing stone figures, a cool, clear lake, and, now, of an old, yet
oddly youthful man.  He turns toward you slowly, his long, silver hair
dancing about him in a fresh breeze.  "You have reached the final test,
my friend!  You are proved clever and powerful, but --

    This is part 2 of the Frequently Asked Questions list for
    the group rec.games.int-fiction, a USENET newsgroup for the discussion
    of Interactive Fiction games and related topics.  To read a
    specific question, use your newsreader's search function on
    the string "(n)", where n is the question number.

    Contents of this file:
    2.0  Infocom
        2.1  Whatever happened to Infocom, anyway?
        2.2  Lost Treasures of Infocom I
        2.3  Lost Treasures of Infocom II
        2.4  Lost Treasures on CD-ROM
#       2.5  Other compilations
        2.6  Infocom products not (yet) re-released
        2.7  Missing or hard-to-find information in LToI packaging
        2.8  Zmachines, vocabulary listers and other programs
#       2.9  Infocom copyrights and playing on other platforms

    The current maintainer is Stephen Van Egmond.  Questions and information
    should be mailed to svanegmo@uwaterloo.ca.

Seek me when you feel yourself worthy!"  The dream dissolves around you
as his last words echo through the void....

>AIMFIZ FORD PREFECT
As you cast the spell, the moldy scroll vanishes!

After a momentary dizziness, you realize that your location has
changed, although Ford Prefect is not in sight...

Dark
You can make out a shadow moving in the dark.

>LOOK AT SHADOW
The shadow is vaguely Ford Prefect-shaped.

Vogon Hold
This is a squalid room filled with grubby mattresses, unwashed
cups, and unidentifiable bits of smelly alien underwear.  A door
lies to port, and an airlock lies to starboard.

Ford removes the bottle of Santraginean Mineral Water which he's
been waving under your nose.  He tells you that you are aboard a
Vogon spaceship, and gives you some peanuts.

>ASK FORD ABOUT INFOCOM
A long silence tells you that Ford Prefect isn't interested in
talking about Infocom.

Ford yawns.  "Matter transference always tires me out.  I'm going to
take a nap."  He places something on top of his satchel.  "If you
have any questions, here's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
(Footnote 14).  Ford lowers his voice to a whisper.  "I'm not
supposed to tell you this, but you'll never be able to finish
the game without consulting the Guide about lots of stuff." As he
curls up in a corner and begins snoring, you pick up the Guide.

>CONSULT GUIDE ABOUT INFOCOM
The Guide checks through its Sub-Etha-Net database and
eventually comes up with the following entry:

    "Whatever happened to Infocom, anyway?"                     (2.1)
    This info is taken from [what was once] the comp.sys.ibm.pc.games FAQ,
    with thanks to Infocom's Stu Galley for passing it along:

    [Thanks to Dave Lebling (Infocom co-founder) for the definitive
     info on this]

    Infocom never went out of business.  It went deeply into debt to
    develop a database product (named Cornerstone) that was a commercial
    flop.  It went shopping for a merger and found Activision, which
    later changed its name to Mediagenic.  What did happen is that
    in May of 1989 Mediagenic closed down the "real" Infocom in
    Cambridge, MA, and laid (almost) everyone off.  All the releases
    up through Zork Zero, Shogun, Journey, and Arthur were developed
    in Cambridge.

    Mediagenic licensed the UK rights to the games to Virgin Mastertronic
    about two years ago.

    Mediagenic went nearly bankrupt, was taken over by outside investors,
    and taken through a so-called "pre-packaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy" in
    January, 1992.  As part of that process, they changed their name back
    to Activision, moved from Silicon Valley down to LA, and recently
    merged with a company owned by the investors (called The Disc Company).

You begin to feel distinctly groggy.

>CONSULT GUIDE ABOUT LOST TREASURES OF INFOCOM I                (2.2)
The Guide checks through its Sub-Etha-Net database and
eventually comes up with the following entry:

    "The Lost Treasures of Infocom" is a collection of 20 Infocom
    games available for $39.95 through most retail and mail-order
    outlets.  The package is available for the IBM PC, the Apple
    Macintosh and the Commodore Amiga.  Games in LToI I include:

    Zork I         Enchanter      Deadline       Starcross
    Zork II        Sorcerer       Witness        Suspended
    Zork III       Spellbreaker   Suspect        Planetfall
    Zork Zero      Ballyhoo       Infidel        Stationfall
    Beyond Zork    Moonmist       Lurking Horror Hitchhiker's Guide

    The LToI 1 package is now available for the Apple IIgs through
    the Big Red Computer Club, which sought and received permission
    from Activision to port the games to the IIgs.  For more info,
    contact the Big Red Computer Club at [address unknown...].
    [Is this still true? --sve]

    The package includes a manual which contains photocopies of all
    the original manuals and game pieces (such as the trading cards
    from "Spellbreaker", which are needed to solve a puzzle in the
    game), but some information is missing -- see section 2.7 below.

    The package also contains a hint book, which looks like
    somebody took all the Invisiclues booklets and typed them into
    a text file.  The hint book is riddled with spelling mistakes,
    formatting errors and other problems, but in most cases the
    mistakes are not serious enough to keep you from using it.

#   See also the entry on "Lost Treasures of Infocom II", "Lost Treasures
#   on CD-ROM" and "Other Compilations".

You begin to feel indistinctly groggy.

>CONSULT GUIDE ABOUT LOST TREASURES OF INFOCOM II               (2.3)
The Guide checks through its Sub-Etha-Net database and
eventually comes up with the following entry:

    "Lost Treasures of Infocom II" contains most (but not all) of
    the remaining Infocom text adventure games, and retails for
    $29.95 through retail and mail order outlets.  Games include:

    Seastalker     Wishbringer    A Mind Forever Voyaging
    Trinity        Cutthroats     Hollywood Hijinx
    Bureaucracy    Border Zone    Plundered Hearts
    Sherlock       Nord and Bert Couldn't Make Head or Tail of It

    This package contains photocopies of the original packaging,
    but does NOT contain a hint book: Instead it contains a
    1-900 number which you can call to receive hints.

#   See also the entry on "Lost Treasures of Infocom I", "Lost Treasures
#   on CD-ROM" and "Other Compilations".

You begin to feel very indistinct.

>EAT PEANUTS
You feel stronger as the peanuts replace some of the protein you
lost in the matter transference beam.

>CONSULT GUIDE ABOUT LOST TREASURES CD-ROM                      (2.4)
The Guide checks through its Sub-Etha-Net database and
eventually comes up with the following entry:

    CD-ROM versions of the Lost Treasures of Infocom I and II are
    available for $49 and $29, respectively.  The LToI I CD-ROM
    is identical to the disk-based version of the package, but the
    LToI II CD-ROM includes the games Shogun, Arthur and Journey
    in addition to the eleven games listed above in LToI 2.

    Both Macintosh and IBM PC versions of the games are included
    on the CD-ROMs.

An announcement is coming over the ship's intercom.  "Ed tgrykonx
jcavfluu nx jchotha otoyefti ltruvupirbi swrotrueft ochoollzitchogrya
rd tfudeftd t ow ctrufudx jp wkonvuphuvd te h oulpkonz zollcava ri li
lo ti l oe hfudx jirbtrugrys gvupp work oo sthaquio ta btoyr gkonr ga
r or gz zr gi skwazitz zkwaa rerl ow cfluirbwroorktoyfimthad tulp oe
he hfluo simbchogryr gu ni s."

>CONSULT GUIDE ABOUT OTHER COMPILATIONS                         (2.5)
The Guide checks through its Sub-Etha-Net database and
eventually comes up with the following entry:

#   "There is the Zork Anthology, published by Activision in 1994 as a
#   CD companion to the pseudo-Infocom title "Return to Zork".
#   It contains Zork I, Zork II, Zork III, Beyond Zork, Zork Zero,
#   and, oddly enough, Planetfall.
#
#   In June 1995, a set of 5 PC-only CD-ROMs were published by Activision,
#   called the Infocom Classics.  The contents of the collections are:
#
#   Mystery Collection: Ballyhoo, Deadline, Witness, Moonmist, Sherlock
#
#   Adventure Collection: Border Zone, Plundered Hearts, Cutthroats, Trinity,
#                         Infidel
#
#   Comedy Collection: Bureaucracy, Hollywood Hijinx, Nord & Bert
#
#   Fantasy Collection: Enchanter, Sorcerer, Spellbreaker, Seastalker,
#                       Wishbringer
#
#   Science Fiction Collection: Hitchhiker's, Suspended, AMFV, Starcross,
#                               Stationfall
#
#   At the moment, no information is available on the pricing or quality of
#   these products.

>CONSULT GUIDE ABOUT OTHER INFOCOM PRODUCTS                     (2.6)
The Guide checks through its Sub-Etha-Net database and
eventually comes up with the following entry:

    There are a handful of games and other Infocom products that are
    not included in any of the LToI packages.  These products range
    from hard-to-find early Infocom products to non-IF games made by
    Activision and marked under the Infocom brand name; information
    and sources for these products would be greatly appreciated.

    For more information about Infocom products, version numbers
    and Infocom products that were never released, see Paul David's
#   Doherty's "Infocom Fact Sheet", which is periodically posted on
#   rec.games.int-fiction and is also avaialable at
#   <ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/infocom/info/fact-sheet.txt>.

    Previous versions of this FAQ incorrectly identified Paul Smith
    as the author of the Infocom Fact Sheet.  A thousand apologies to
    both Pauls for the confusion, and credit where credit is due.]

    _The Infocom Sampler_  (pre-1984?)
    This was the first of three demo products written by Infocom,
    containing (we think) excerpts from Zork I.  The existence of
    this sampler is deduced mainly because a later version of the
    Sampler has serial number "ID2", suggesting an earlier "ID1".
    Any information about this product would be appreciated.

    _The New Zork Times_ / _The Status Line_  (1983? - 1988)
    The legendary Infocom newsletter.  The mid was changed in mid-
    1986 due to threatened legal action by The New York Times, a
    lesser-known newspaper serving a smaller area (Infocom promptly
    began using old newspapers for packing material when shipping
    games to their customers; by coincidence the NYT was the paper
    of choice for this purpose).  Thirteen issues were published
    under the name 'NZT'; one issue (Spring 1986) was titled '****'
    and the remaining ten were published as 'TSL'.  The newsletters
    are now collector's items, and a complete set is rare.

#   There is an effort underway on rec.games.int-fiction to create
#   electronic editions of these newsletters.  Watch this space for more
#   information.

    _Cornerstone_  (Fall 1984)
    Infocom's one and only attempt at a commercial business product
    (see section 2.1, above); probably of interest only to purists.
    IBM PC version only; description in Winter 1985 NZT.

    _The Infocom Sampler_  (1984, 1985)
    This was the second of three samplers, containing excerpts from
    Zork I, Planetfall, Infidel and The Witness, and also containing
    a unique two-room puzzle that involved catching a butterfly.
    Available for virtually every computer on the market in 1985
    (including the Osborne, Kaypro II, TRS-80 Color Computer, etc.)
#   Superseded in 1987 by the third and final Infocom Sampler (see below).
#   <ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/infocom/demos/sampler1_R55.z3>

     _Fooblitzky_  (Summer 1985)
    A graphical game involving deductive logic, by Marc Blank,
    Michael Berlyn, Brian Cody, Poh C.  Lim and Paula Maxwell.
    IBM PC, Apple II, Atari XL/XE series.

    _Leather Goddesses of Phobos_  (Summer 1986)
    Activision chose not to include the original LGoP in either of
    the Lost Treasures packages, possibly to prevent confusion with
    the inferior sequel (see below) that was published at about the
    same time.  A coupon in the LToI II package offered the IBM PC
    version of this game for an additional $10; versions for other
    machines, including the Apple II, Macintosh, Atari and Amiga,
    are difficult to obtain.

    _The Infocom Sampler_  (Fall 1987)
    Third and final sampler containing puzzles from Zork I, Trinity,
    Leather Goddesses of Phobos and Wishbringer.  IBM PC, Apple II
    and Commodore 64.
#   <ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/infocom/demos/sampler2.z3>

    _Infocomics_  (1988)
    At least four of these $12 'comic books' were published:
      Lane Mastodon vs. The Blubbermen
      Gamma Force in Pit of a Thousand Screams
      ZorkQuest I: Assault on Egreth Castle
      ZorkQuest II: The Crystal of Doom
    Many believe that this is the point where Infocom-as-a-publisher
    ended and Infocom-as-a-brand-name-for-lesser-products began.
    IBM PC, Apple II, Commodore 64/128.

    _Quarterstaff: The Tomb of Setmoth_  (Fall 1988)
    Activision purchased the rights to this Macintosh game from
    Simulated Environment Systems in late 1988, and reworked the
    text and user interface.  The game is a graphical RPG similar
    to a number of D&D-type games on the market.  Infocom planned
    to release this game for the Apple IIgs and IBM, but only the
    Macintosh version was ever published.

    _BattleTech: The Crescent Hawk's Inception_  (Fall 1988)
    Activision now sells this game and its sequel (_BattleTech: The
    Crescent Hawk's Revenge_) as part of a three-game package of
    BattleTech-related games.  Developed by Westwood Associates.
    "Available in November [1988] for the IBM, in February [1989]
    for the Commodore 64/128, and in [Spring 1989] for the Apple II
    series and the Amiga."  The IBM, Amiga and Commodore 64 versions
    have been sighted; the status of the Apple II versions are
    unknown.

    _Shogun_  (Winter 1988?)
    A graphical IF adventure based on the James Clavell novel, by
    Dave Lebling.  Available as part of the LToI 2 CD-ROM package
    for the Macintosh and IBM PC; versions for the Apple IIe and
    Amiga were also published, but are now rare.

    _Circuit's Edge_
    IBM, Amiga.  No other information available at press time.

    _Mines of Titan_
    IBM, Amiga, Apple IIe.  No other information available.

    _Journey_
    A fantasy adventure by Marc Blank.  Available as part of the
    LToI 2 CD-ROM package for the Macintosh and IBM PC; versions
    for the Apple IIe and Amiga were also published.

    _Arthur: The Quest for Excalibur_
    By Bob Bates, the author of _Sherlock_.  Available as part
    of the LToI 2 CD-ROM package for the Macintosh and IBM PC;
    versions for the Apple IIe and Amiga were also published.

    _Leather Goddesses of Phobos II:  Gas Pump Girls Meet the
      Pulsating Inconvenience from Planet X_
    This 1992 offering from "Infocom" had more in common with
    Leisure Suit Larry than with the original Leather Goddesses.
    Available for the IBM PC.

    _Return to Zork_
    A mid-1993 entry for the IBM PC, set far in the "future" of
    the Zork series.  Graphical interface.  A Macintosh version
#   was released in mid-1994.  PC Demo is available.
#   <ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/infocom/demos/zorkdemo.zip>

    _Planetfall: The Search for Floyd_
    Due out in 1995, a graphical adventure written by Steve Meretzky,
    Richard Manning and Hand Beimler.

    _Zork: Nemesis_
    Also due out in 1995, and almost certainly another graphical adventure.

Guards burst in and grab you and Ford, who comes slowly awake.
They drag you down the corridor to a large cabin, where they strap
you into large, menacing chairs...

Captain's Quarters, in the poetry appreciation chair
This is the cabin of the Vogon Captain.  You and Ford are strapped
into poetry appreciation chairs.  The Captain is indescribably
hideous, indescribably blubbery, and indescribably mid-to-dark
green.  He is holding samples of his favourite poetry.

>ASK THE CAPTAIN ABOUT MISSING GAME PIECES                      (2.7)
One of the guards lightly bashes your skull with the butt of his weapon
and says (Ford translates for you):

    Here is a list of missing or hard-to-find info in the LToI 1
#   game package.  Many (all?) have been typed in and are available
#   at the ftp site in the directory infocom/shipped-documentation.

    _Ballyhoo_
    The original packaging included an advertisement for a radio
    station, WPDL AM at 1170 KHz.  You will need to tune the radio
    to this frequency (or TUNE RADIO TO WPDL) to get a vital clue.
#   
<ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/infocom/shipped-documentation/ballyhoo.lost.stuff>

    _Lurking Horror_
    Your Login ID, an important part of one of the early puzzles,
    is *not* missing from the LToI manual.  It's just hard to find.
    (Hint:  It's written somewhere on your Student ID Card.)

#   _Bureaucracy_
#   Some important information from the Popular Paranoia advertisement
#   is missing, as well as the Beezer card application in triplicate is
#   absent from the LToI 2 package.
#   
<ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/infocom/shipped-documentation/bureaucracy 
lost.stuff>

    _Moonmist_
    Your friend Tamara will make frequent references to the letters
    she wrote asking for your help; unfortunately, these letters
    are not included in the LToI package.  The full text of these
    two letters is available from the ftp.gmd.de archive, with many
    thanks to Mark Howell for typing in these letters from the
    original package.
#   
<ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/infocom/shipped-documentation/moonmist.letters>

    _Zork Zero_
    The original documentation for Zork Zero contained information
    about the game's on-screen mapping, which may be activated by
    typing in the command "MAP" at any time during the game.  No mention
    is made of this in LToI 1.

    Also, some versions of the LToI package may be missing a (vital)
    map of the "Rockville Estates" section of the game.  The map is a
    blueprint of a construction site ("Frobozz Magic Construction
    Company") showing an 8 x 8 grid of octagonal rooms connected by
    lines representing passages.  You cannot win the game without
    the information on this map.

    Some copies of the LToI manual include this map on a page that
    is apparently numbered "40b" (the preceding page is "40a", and
    the next page is 41 -- the page with the map is not numbered),
    suggesting that the map was inserted after the first printing.
    Early IBM versions of the LToI manual include the map on page 2
    of the Zork I instructions.

    If your copy of the manual is missing page 40b, and you cannot
    find the map anywhere else in the game package, call Activision
    technical support at 310-207-4500 (Mon-Fri 9am-5pm PST) and
    explain the situation to them.  They should provide you with a
    replacement map.

    If all else fails, the ASCII drawing on the next page is a rough
    but accurate rendering of the "Rockville Estates" blueprint for
    Infocom's Zork Zero.  This map is provided for use by legitimate
    owners of the Lost Treasures of Infocom package only.

 0     1     2     3     4     5.... 6.... 7           Goobar -
                           .'    .'    .'              I left my hardhat
 8     9    10    11    12....13    14    15           out in lot 0.
                         : .'          .'              Please pick it up
16    17    18    19    20    21    22....23                  Thanks,
         `.          .'    .'    .'                            Quizbo
24    25    26....27    28    29    30....31
       : .'                .'  :
32    33    34....35    36    37    38....39
 :       .'          .'              : .'       To
40    41    42....43    44....45    46    47....GUH-95
 : `.    .'  : .'    `.          .'    .'
48    49    50    51....52    53    54    55
   `.              : `.        :       `.
56....57....58    59    60    61....62....63
                                          ._____________________________
Work still to be performed in Phase Two:  |Frobozz Magic Construction Co
  * Removal of temporary passages         |       ROCKVILLE ESTATES
  * Installation of emergency exits       |  Phase Two, showing all work
  * Installation of sprinkler system      | completed through 29-Mum-880
  * Construction of Concierge apartment   | 1:440 | drawn by S. Fzortbar


The Vogon Captain says, "Ofudgrythafudo tw cchoe ho tz z ocavtrup
wwroz zl mfluz ztruqui."  A guard grabs you and Ford, and drags you
toward the hold.  Ford whispers, "Don't worry, I'll think of something!"

Vogon Hold
In the corner is a glass case with a switch and a keyboard.
It looks like the glass case contains:
  an atomic vector plotter

Ford begins trying to talk the guard into a sudden career change.

>TYPE "HELLO"
The hold of the Vogon ship is virtually undamaged by the explosion of
the glass case.  You, however, are blasted into tiny bits and smeared
all over the room.  Several cleaning robots fly in and wipe you neatly
off the walls.

    ****  You have died  ****

Your guardian angel, draped in white, appears floating in the
nothingness before you.  "Gotten in a bit of a scrape, eh?" he asks,
writing frantically in a notebook.  "I'd love to chat, but we're so
busy this month." The angel twitches his nose, and the nothingness
is replaced by...

Darkness
It is pitch black.  You could be eaten by a zmachine.

>WHAT IS A ZMACHINE?                                            (2.8)
    A zmachine or ZIP (Z-machine Interpreter Program) is a program
    that interprets and runs Infocom game data files.  Infocom used
    a way-ahead-of-their-time implementation scheme that allowed
    them to develop one game that would run on any of 26 different
    computers, using a ZIP program specific to that computer and a
    data file common to all machines.

    Infocom data files are written in Z-code, a compiled version of
    the Zork Implementation Language (ZIL).  ZIL is a dialect of a
    Lisp-like language called MDL.  MDL is ancient history, but ZIL
    and several reverse-engineered ZIPs live on.  Here is a list of
    available ZIPs and related programs, provided by Paul D. Smith:

#   They are available at <ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/infocom/interpreters>

    _zorkword_ by Mike Threepoint <linhart@rutgers.edu>
        Current version: 9
        Prints the vocabulary list from any Z-Code version game
#       [I have been unable to figure out where this an be obtained. --sve]

    _zmachine_ by Matthias Pfaller <leo@marco.de>
        Current version: 2.24
        Plays most Z-Code v.3 games (except games with sound)
        Supports UNIX termcap, MS-DOS, Amiga and Atari ST systems
        Supports sound on the Amiga only

    _infocom_ by InfoTaskForce
        Current version: 4.01 + 2 patches
 #      Beta version: 4.02 (not being improved anymore) available.
        Plays all Z-Code v.1 to v.5 games.  Includes features to print
        vocabulary lists, object trees, and header info for all Z-Code
#       versions.  It has been ported to the Acorn, Atari ST, OS/2,
#       Amiga, Macintosh, DOS, Psion, and vanilla Unix.

    _pinfocom_ by Paul D. Smith <paul_smith@dg.com>
        Current version: 3.0
        Plays all Z-Code v.3 games.  Includes features to print
        vocabulary lists, object trees, and header info for all Z-Code
        versions.  Supports UNIX termcap and terminfo, MS-DOS, and
        Amiga systems.  Basically does everything ITF 4.01 does and
        more (command-line restore, enhanced command-line editing
        commands, stellar Amiga interface, etc.) but only works for
        v.3 games.

    _zip_ by Mark Howell <howell_ma@movies.enet.dec.com>
#       Current version: 2.0.7
#       Plays all Z-Code v.1 to v.5 games, including the "new" v.8 games
#       (which only permit a larger memory space).  This is considered the
#       most "correct" interpreter available.  Supports Mac, Atari ST,
#       MS Windows, X/Windows, Amiga, DOS, VMS, OS/2, OS/2 Warp, Apple IIGS,
#       and Linux.
#
#       Mark has also made available "ztools", a collection of
#       C source files for dumping vocabulary, version, font, graphic
#       and other information from Infocom games, for converting IBM
#       bootable disks into story files, and for disassembly of story
#       files to Z code assembly language.  There are also numerous other
#       "tool" programs for Infocom files available by other authors and
#       platforms.

    _zterp_ by Charles Hannum
        Current version: 0.3 alpha
        A bare-bones v.3 interpreter with source.

>N
Oh, no!  A lurking zmachine slithered into the room and devoured you!

    ****  You have died  ****

Now, let's take a look here... Well, you probably deserve another chance. I
can't quite fix you up completely, but you can't have everything.

Potting Room
This light room is full of pot plants, flowers, seeds, ornamental trowels and
other miscellaneous garden implements.

A pair of yellow rubber gloves hangs from a hook on one wall.

Aunt, Jemima, who has for years collected varieties of daisy, is engaged in
her regular annual pastime of deciding which species make the best chains.

>ASK JEMIMA ABOUT COPYRIGHTS
Jemima screeches with irritation.

#   "Copyrights on Infocom products / using other platforms"    (2.9)
#   Since Activision bought Infocom, Activision now owns the copyrights
#   and trademarks on Infocom's products.
#
#   This means it's illegal to have a copy of any Infocom product you didn't
#   pay for.  This may make owners of non-PC, non-Mac computers
#   despair since the only products shipping are for those two platforms,
#   but there are options available.  You can purchase one of the anthologies
#   listed above, transfer the data files to your computer somehow,
#   and use one of the available interpreters to run it.  This is the
#   inherent beauty of Infocom's Zmachine idea.
#
#   Your interpreter should support at least v.3 files.  Some of the better
#   games (Trinity) are version 4 or 5.  Zork Zero, Arthur, Journey and
#   Shogun are v.6 games, for which no interpreter is available.  There
#   probably will never be one, either since v.6 games incorporate lots
#   of graphics which make them difficult to port to other operating systems.
#
#   There probably isn't a legal problem with doing this, as long as you
#   don't sell the original disks.  Of course, if you sell your package,
#   you should destroy the copies you've made.
#
#   Copyright issues with respect to samplers, invisiclues, New Zork Times
#   issues, and other things which Activision, in practice, will never want
#   to redistribute, have not been resolved.
#
#   Activision can be reached at:
#    Activision/Infocom
#    P.O. Box 67001
#    Los Angeles, CA, USA 90067
#    [phone numbers? order numbers?]
#    Tech support: 310-207-4500 (Mon-Fri 9am-5pm PST)

Jemima has nothing else to say on the subject.

>E.E.S.E.LIE DOWN.SLEEP.
You sleep unexpectedly deeply, but just as you think you are starting to wake
up, you experience a sudden...

Premonition
It is a frosty, clear night, but there is a scent of camp-fires burning in
the distance.  You are passing through the landscape as if a ghost, and all
seems faintly unreal.  To the east is one side of an animal-hide tent, but
there is no way in from here.  To southwest, some soldiers sit around the
embers of a fire.  There is a terrible sense of something about to happen.

>SW
Camp Fire
A motley platoon of soldiers are sitting about the embers of a fire.

>LISTEN

#   "Creating your own adventure games"                         (2.10)
#   Since this part of the FAQ is Infocom-oriented I will tell you
#   that there is a freely distributable compiler available called Inform
#   which allows you to generate Infocom-format story files that can be
#   played with any Zmachine interpreter.  The Inform language is excellent,
#   but it does require a certain degree of prior programming knowledge.
#   <ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/infocom/compilers/inform>
#
#   There are many IF development systems available.  More information on
#   them can be obtained from the rec.arts.int-fiction FAQ, and other files
#   of interest at ftp.gmd.de, such as
#   
<ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/programming/general-discussion/authoring- 
ystems.FAQ>
#   and
#   
<ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/programming/general-discussion/TADS-vs-Inform.FAQ>

>QUIT
Your score would be 400 points (total of 400 points), in 2 articles.
This score gives you the rank of Seasoned USENET Adventurer.
Do you wish to leave the game? (Y is affirmative): > Y

Press any key to continue




