NAME
frotz - interpreter for Infocom and other Z-Machine games
SYNOPSIS
frotz [options] file
DESCRIPTION
Frotz is a Z-Machine interpreter. The Z-machine is a virtual machine
designed by Infocom to run all of their text adventures. It went
through multiple revisions during the lifetime of the company, and two
further revisions (V7 and V8) were created by Graham Nelson after the
company’s demise. The specification is now quite well documented; this
version of Frotz supports version 1.0.
This version of Frotz fully supports all these versions of the Z-
Machine except for version 6. Version 6 is semi-supported by
displaying the outlines of V6 graphics with the picture number in the
bottom-right corner.
This port supports old-style sound effects through the OSS sound
driver.
OPTIONS
-a Watch attribute setting. Setting and clearing of attributes on
objects will be noted in debugging messages.
-A Watch attribute testing. Every time the z-machine tests an
attribute value, the test and the result will be reported.
-b <colorname>
Sets the default background color. <colorname> corresponds to
one of the Z-machine colors, which are as follows:
black red green yellow blue magenta cyan white
If color support is disabled or not available on your terminal,
this option does nothing.
-c N Sets the number of context lines used. By default, after a
‘‘[MORE]’’ prompt, and assuming there is enough output pending,
Frotz will allow all the currently visible lines to scroll off
the screen before prompting again. This switch specifies how
many lines of text Frotz will hold over and display at the top
of the next screen.
-d Disable color.
-e Enable sound. If you’ve disabled sound in a config file and
want to hear sound effects, use this.
-f <colorname>
Sets the default foreground color. <colorname> corresponds to
one of the Z-machine colors, which are as follows
black red green yellow blue magenta cyan white
If color support is disabled or is not available on your
terminal, this option does nothing.
-F Force color mode. If you’ve disabled color in a config file and
want to Frotz to display colors, use this.
-h N Manually sets the screen height. Though most curses libraries
are intelligent enough to determine the current width from the
terminal, it may sometimes be necessary to use this option to
override the default.
-i Ignore fatal errors. If a Z-Machine interpreter encounters a
zcode error such as division-by-zero or addressing an illegal
object, the proper response is to abort execution. This is done
because the zcode program doesn’t have a clear idea of what is
going on. There are some games out there that cause fatal
errors because the authors were careless and used an interpreter
that didn’t properly check for errors. This option is intended
to get around such bugs, but be warned that Strange Things may
happen if fatal errors are not caught.
-l N Sets the left margin, for those who might have specific
formatting needs.
-o Watch object movement. This option enables debugging messages
from the interpreter which describe the moving of objects in the
object tree.
-O Watch object location. These debugging messages detail the
locations of objects in the object tree.
-p Plain ASCII output only. This inhibits the output of accented
letters and other characters from the Latin-1 character set,
replacing them with reasonable alternatives. This may be
necessary on devices lacking these characters.
-P Alter the piracy opcode. The piracy opcode was never used by
Infocom. This switch is really only useful for those who like
to toy around with Z-code.
-q Quiet. Turns off sound effects. Useful when running Frotz on a
remote machine and you don’t want to bother whoever’s near the
console with weird noises.
-Q No Quetzal. By default, Frotz uses the new Quetzal save format
when you save your game. If for some reason you want to save
and restore using the old Frotz format, use this flag.
-r N Sets the right margin.
-s N Set the random number seed value. The given seed value is used
as the initial seed value on every restart. This is helpful for
testing games like Curses which make random decisions before the
first input (such that the hot key Alt-S does not really help).
-S N Set the transcript width. By default your transscript files are
formatted to a width of 80 columns per line, regardless of the
current screen width. This switch allows you to change this
setting. In particular, use -S 0 to deactivate automatic line
splitting in transscript files.
-t Sets the z-machine’s Tandy bit, which may affect the behavior of
certain Infocom games. For example, Zork I pretends not to have
sequels, and Witness has its language toned down.
-u N Sets the number of slots available for Frotz’s multiple undo
hotkey (see below). This defaults to twenty, which should be
sufficient for most purposes. Setting too high a number here
may be dangerous on machines with limited memory.
-w N Manually sets the screen width. Again, this should not be
necessary except in special circumstances.
-x Expand the abbreviations "g", "x", and "z" to "again",
"examine", and "wait". This switch is for use iwth old Infocom
games that lack these common abbreviations which were introduced
in later games. Use it with caution: A few games might use "g",
"x" or "z" for different purposes.
-Z N Error checking mode.
0 = don’t report errors.
1 = report first instance of an error.
2 = report all errors.
3 = exit after any error.
Default is 1 (report first instance of an error).
CONFIGURATION FILES
On startup, frotz will first check the system’s frotz.conf then
$HOME/.frotzrc for configuration information. The configuration file
uses a simple
<variable> <whitespace> <value> syntax.
Color names may be any of the following:
black | red | green | blue | magenta | cyan | white
ascii on | off
Use plain ASCII only. Default is "off".
background <colorname>
Set background color. Default is terminal’s default background color.
color yes | no
Use color text. Default is "yes" if supported.
errormode never | once | always | fatal
Set error reporting mode.
never Don’t report any errors except for fatal ones.
once Report only the first instance of an error.
always Report every instance of an error.
fatal Abort on any error, even non-fatal ones.
Default is "once".
expand_abb on | off
Expand abbreviations. Default is off. Expand the abbreviations "g",
"x", and "z" to "again", "examine", and "wait". This switch is for use
with old Infocom games that lack these common abbreviations which were
introduced in later games. Use it with caution. A few games might use
the "g", "x", or "z" for different purposes.
foreground <colorname>
Set foreground color. Default is terminal’s default forground color.
ignore_fatal on | off
Ignore fatal errors. If a Z-Machine interpreter encounters a zcode
error such as division-by-zero or addressing an illegal object, the
proper response is to abort execution. This is done because the zcode
program doesn’t have a clear idea of what is going on. There are some
games out there that cause fatal errors because the authors were
careless and used an interpreter that didn’t properly check for errors.
This option is intended to get around such bugs, but be warned that
Strange Things may happen if fatal errors are not caught.
Default is "off"
piracy on | off
Alter the piracy opcode. Default is off. The piracy opcode was never
used by Infocom. This option is only useful for those who like to toy
around with Z-code.
quetzal on | off
Use Quetzal save format. Default is on. If for some reason you want
to save or restore using the old Frotz format, set this to "off".
randseed <integer>
Set random number seed. Default comes from the Unix epoch.
sound on | off
Turn sound effects on or off. Default is "on".
tandy on | off
Set the machine’s Tandy bit. This may affect the behavior of certain
Infocom games. For example, Zork I pretends not to have sequels, and
Witness has its language toned down. Default is "off".
undo_slots <integer>
Set number of undo slots. Default is 500.
zcode_path /path/to/zcode/files:/another/path
Set path to search for zcode game files. This is just like the $PATH
environmental variable except that you can’t put environmental
variables in the path or use other shortcuts. For example,
"$HOME/games/zcode" is illegal because the shell can’t interpret that
$HOME variable.
The following options are really only useful for weird terminals, weird
curses libraries or if you want to force a certain look (like play in
40-column mode).
context_lines <integer>
Set the number of context lines used. By default, after a ‘‘[MORE]’’
prompt, and assuming there is enough output pending, frotz will allow
all the currently visible lines to scroll off the screen before
prompting again. This switch specifies how many lines of text frotz
will hold over and display at the top of the next screen. Default is
"0".
left_margin <integer>
Set the left margin. This is for those who might have special
formatting needs.
right_margin <integer>
Set the right margin. This is for those who might have special
formatting needs.
screen_height <integer>
Manually set screen height. Most curses libraries are intelligent
enough to determine the current width of the terminal. You may need to
use this option to override the default.
screen_width <integer>
Manually set screen width. Again, this should not be necessary except
in special circumstances.
script_width <integer>
Set the transcript width. Default is 80 columns per line, regardless
of the current screen width. This switch allows you to change this
setting. You may set this to "0" to deactivate automatic line-
splitting in transcript files.
The following options are mainly useful for debugging or cheating.
attrib_set on | off
Watch attribute setting. Setting and clearing of attributes on objects
will be noted in debugging messages. Default is "off"
attrib_test on | off
Watch attribute testing. Every time the z-machine tests an attribute
value, the test and the result will be reported. Default is "off".
obj_loc on | off
Watch object location. These debugging messages detail the locations
of objects in the object tree. Default is "off".
obj_move on | off
Watch object movement. This option enables debugging messages from the
interpreter which describe the movement of objects in the object tree.
Default is "off".
ENVIRONMENT
If the ZCODE_PATH environmental variable is defined, frotz will search
that path for game files. If that doesn’t exist, INFOCOM_PATH will be
searched.
Latest information on Unix Frotz is here:
http://www.cs.csubak.edu/~dgriffi/proj/frotz/
The latest release of Unix Frotz is here:
ftp://ftp.ifarchive.org/if-archive/infocom/interpreters/frotz/
See this website for a list of mirrors:
http://www.ifarchive.org
See this website for more information on Infocom past, present, and
future; and where to get new Z-Machine games and the old ones by
Infocom:
http://www.csd.uwo.ca/Infocom/
Frotz for other platforms:
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Heights/3222/frotz.html
GAME-STATE SAVE FILES
In this Debian version, Frotz creates the directory $HOME/.infocom to
place saved games into. The default name for saved games is
$HOME/.infocom/<gamename>.sav, where <gamename> is the stem of the name
of the game file.
CAVEATS
The Z Machine itself has trouble with the concept of resizing a
terminal. It assumes that once the screen height and width are set,
they will never change; even across saves. This made sense when 24x80
terminals were the norm and graphical user interfaces were mostly
unknown. I’m fairly sure there’s a way around this problem, but for
now, don’t resize an xterm in which frotz is running. Also, you should
try to make sure the terminal on which you restore a saved game has the
same dimensions as the one on which you saved the game.
You can use a path like "/usr/local/games/zcode:$HOME/zcode" with
$ZCODE_PATH or $INFOCOM_PATH because the shell will digest that $HOME
variable for you before setting $ZCODE_PATH. While processing
frotz.conf and $HOME/.frotzrc, a shell is not used. Therefore you
cannot use environmental variables in the "zcodepath" option within the
config files.
This manpage is not intended to tell users HOW to play interactive
fiction. Refer to the file HOW_TO_PLAY included in the Unix Frotz
documentation or visit one of the following sites:
http://www.csd.uwo.ca/Infocom/faq.html
http://www.cs.csubak.edu/~dgriffi/proj/frotz/HOW_TO_PLAY
http://www.ifarchive.org
BUGS
This program has no bugs. no bugs. no bugs. no *WHAP* thank you.
AUTHORS
Frotz was written by Stefan Jokisch in 1995-7.
The Unix port was done by Galen Hazelwood.
Currently the Unix port is maintained by David Griffith.
SEE ALSO
dfrotz(6) nitfol(6) rezrov(6) jzip(6) xzip(6) inform(1)
2.43