Hands up if you're an Infocom addict. Keep your hand up if you've been suffering withdrawal symptoms every since they dropped the CP/M versions of their games. Ok, all those with their hands still up, stick around; the rest of you, good-day, and the exit's to the left. Ok, now that we're down to the dedicated brethren, I can release the good news. Infocom games are once again available for us CP/Mers! Quiet in back! How can I explain with all of this noise? Quiet, I say! I've known for a couple of years that the Infocom data files were compatible across machines; this has been relatively widely published. Unfortunately, both the Apple and IBM versions which I've seen have been on abnormal, sometimes protected, disks. It's still possible to pull the data files off these protected versions; when I moved from an old Apple clone to a Xerox 820-I, my first real CP/M box many years ago, I ported the data files through a very tedious process of reading each sector on the protected disk under Apple DOS and writing it out to a normal DOS file, which was then transferred to a CP/M disk. Using this method, I ported all of my originals to the Xerox, then made copies of the interpreter program from my one real CP/M original. After patching the data file name in the interpreter copies, all my favourite Infocom stuff was now on CP/M. Dying hardware, and Spellbreaker, eventually defeated me. Spellbreaker took up an entire Apple disk, which presented me with a problem; the space required for the directory on an Apple CP/M disk meant I couldn't just do my sector by sector trick. That, and the fact that the Apple clone was very quickly dying, meant that I had to leave Spellbreaker half solved. And that's how things stood until a couple of weeks ago, when a kindly gentleman by the name of Greg Miner informed me that the Atari versions were available on ordinary Atari disks, and that he had successfully ported a data file from the Atari to his CP/M machine. So, the very next computer show, I purchased an Atari copy of Spellbreaker, and had the data file transferred to a Kaypro 5.25" diskette, which I was able to read with my Ampro LB (somehow, I didn't thing the 3.5" Atari disk would go over well in my 5.25" drives). So now I'm finally going to be able to finish Spellbreaker! The data file is working quite nicely with the interpreter program from Zork 1. Ah, but it's good to be back... Hey, where'd everybody go? I'm not finished yet! Come back! There are a few minor difficulties that must be overcome to use this method. First, you have to locate an Atari version of the game you want. Second, you have to get the .DAT file transferred to something your machine can read. Third, you must have the .COM program from another Infocom game in CP/M format; the data file won't help you much otherwise. Fourth, you either have to rename the data file to the same filename as what the interpreter originally expected, or patch the filename in the interpreter (it's in the first 16 bytes of the COM file). And finally, this method won't work with every Infocom game. Before there's any more weeping and gnashing of teeth, it will work with the following: Zork 1/2/3, Deadline, Witness, Starcross, Suspended, Planetfall, Enchanter, Sorcerer, Spellbreaker, Infidel, Seastalker, Cutthroats, Hitchhiker's Guide, Suspect, and any other Infocom game published prior to 1986. It *probably will not* work with: Beyond Zork, Zork 0, or any of the other relatively new Infocom stuff. Some time after dropping the CP/M end of their business, the new Infocom games began to have an on-screen mapping feature. This would tend to imply that the interpreter itself had changed, so we're probably out of luck. Still, some "new to CP/M" games are available via this method. As far as I've been able to find out, Spellbreaker was never released in CP/M format, and there may be others as well. If you find any, let the world know; after all, I'm going to finish Spellbreaker sooner or later, *then* what will I do??? October 26/89 W. Hortensius