The IFWiki ZIL page documents ZIL (Zork Implementation Language), the historic Lisp-like programming language created by Infocom to build its legendary text adventure games. 📜 Brief History
Origins: The original Zork (or Dungeon) was written at MIT in a language called MDL. To make the massive game fit onto limited 1980s home computers, Infocom stripped down MDL to create ZIL.
The Virtual Machine: Instead of compiling games for specific hardware, Infocom compiled ZIL code into a standardized byte-code called Z-code. This ran on an imaginary virtual computer called the Z-machine.
Write Once, Run Everywhere: Because of this setup, Infocom could easily port its entire game catalog to any new home computer simply by writing a Z-machine interpreter for that system. ⚙️ How Infocom’s Toolchain Worked
Infocom used an internal, multi-step pipeline to build games:
Zilch: The “ZIL Compiler Hack” written by Marc Blank. It converted raw .zil text files into Z-machine assembly language.
ZAP: The assembler program that took Zilch’s output and turned it into the final .z1 through .z6 story files. 🚀 Present Day Revival
While Infocom’s internal Zilch compiler was lost to time, ZIL has seen a major modern community revival: ZIL – IFWiki