<!--
	Title: The History of Zork — The Final (?) Chapter: MIT, MDL, ZIL, ZIP
	Author: Stu Galley, SPECIAL TO The New Zork Times
	Source: The New Zork Times, v4(3)
	Date: Summer 1985
	Transcription by Steve Derby
-->

The year: 1979. As Tim Anderson has recounted in previous installments
([part 1](/library/nzt-the-history-of-zork-part-1), [part 2](/library/nzt-the-history-of-zork-part-2))
in this series, Zork was one large computer game, about a megabyte
in size — as large as it could be and still fit in its original home, a
DECsystem-10. Marc Blank and Dave Lebling designed and wrote
the program, with the help of Bruce Daniels and Tim. They had met and
worked together in a research group at M.I.T., and now the group was
losing valuable talent through graduation and the lure of "the real
world." Several members of the group believed that they could still
produce outstanding computer-based products in almost any category —
from programming languages like MDL (an important influence on
modern Lisp) to data bases, electronic mail and artificially intelligent
systems — if only centrifugal force didn’t separate them.

The problem: What sort of product could the group work on
together, and to whom could they sell it? As early as 1976, they had
discussed the potential marketability of various computer games that had
been designed or implemented by group members just for fun. Now
their attention was focused on various potential products based on
mini-computers, some involving custom hardware as well as
software. The group was ignoring the potential of a mass market for
micro-computers, not only from lack of experience with them (the group’s
unofficial motto is "We hate micros!") but also from serious
concerns about software piracy.

Joel Berez had graduated from the group and was working in his
family’s business in Pittsburgh. Marc had finished medical school (and
moonlighting on *Zork* development) and was starting his medical
residency in Pittsburgh. These two had long been friends, and they liked
getting together for a Chinese dinner and conversation.

One topic of conversation was "the good old days" at M.I.T., and one
reason that the old days were good was Zork. They wished that *Zork*'s
wonderfulness (or "taste and winnage" in M.I.T. jargon) could
somehow be brought to more people. But very few people had
access to the large computers that could run *Zork*. More and more
people were beginning to buy personal computers — like the
Radio Shack TRS-80 Model I or the Apple II — but those computers
were too small to run *Zork*. Or were they?

Joel and Marc began some seat-of-the-pants design work (much of it on
Joel’s parents’ coffee table) on how much *Zork* could be compressed,
and how to do so in a flexible way to allow for different, incompatible
personal computers in the future. They considered using available
"portable" tools for programming, like UCSD Pascal, but it soon
became clear that *Zork* had too much text in it. (Keep in mind that a
standard personal computer at this time came with 16K bytes of
memory and no disk drive.) They finally concluded that, by inventing
a programming system specifically for *Zork*, they could fit about half of
it into a computer with 32K bytes of memory and one floppy-disk drive.

Meanwhile, the group at M.I.T. was in the process of forming a
corporation — choosing "Infocom" as the name least offensive to
everyone — and searching for a project that would quickly produce a
product to start generating income for the company. Among the
projects they considered were systems for keeping track of
documents, handling electronic correspondence, and processing text.
When *Zork* was added to the list of possibilities, Joel and Marc worked
intensively during the summer and autumn creating the programming
tools for their design. And they had to work for IOUs, since the
company treasury — which started with only $11,500 — could afford to
pay only for the hardware they needed at the time.

The key to their design was an imaginary computer chip called the
"Z-machine". This chip would be able to run *Zork* (or at least part of
it) if the program were coded in a special, very compact language.
Then the design called for each personal computer to have a
program (called a Z-machine Interpreter Program or ZIP) that
would interpret the special Z-machine language and make the
computer act the same way that a real Z-machine would. In order to
get *Zork* written in this special language, another language was
invented, called *Zork* Implementation Language (ZIL), similar in
many ways to MDL. Marc built a two-stage translator program that
would translate a ZIL program, first into an assembly language and then
further into the Z-machine language. He also built a ZIP so that a
DECsystem-20 could emulate the Z-machine.

There was still the problem of cutting *Zork* in half. Dave examined
his complete map of *Zork* and drew a boundary around a portion that
included about 100 or so locations: everything "above ground" and a
large section surrounding the Round Room. The object was to create a
smaller *Zork* that would fit within the constraints established by the
design of Joel and Marc. Whatever wouldn’t fit was to be saved for
another game, another day.

In the process of being converted from MDL into ZIL, the program
became "cleaner" and friendlier. The geographies of the maze and the coal
mine were simplified so that the connections were less arbitrary, and
in other places complexity was removed whenever it didn’t serve a
justifiable purpose. For example, there was originally a barrel sitting
near the top of Aragain Falls, but it was just a red herring; its only
purpose was to lure unsuspecting adventurers inside and carry them
over the falls to destruction. The Rainbow Room had its name
changed to On the Rainbow, and that meant removing the silly joke
about Rockefeller Center and the NBC Commissary. Since the Land
of the (Living) Dead (the word "Living" was removed in order to fit
the name on the status line) no longer led to the stairway where
Zork III later began, the crystal skull (a brand-new treasure) was put there
instead.

By late 1979, Joel and Marc had both moved back to Boston. Joel had
been elected president of Infocom and started business school,
and Zork I was shaping up as Infocom’s first product. *Zork I* first
saw the light of day on a DEC-system-20 on which the
company was renting time, then on the PDP-11 in Joel’s bedroom. Scott
Cutler (who had graduated from the group a couple of years before) used
his TRS-80 Model II to create a ZIP for a TRS-80 Model I. As 1980
dawned, Infocom spent a large portion of its bank account to
purchase a Model I, and Scott and Marc demonstrated that *Zork I* was
alive in it by starting the game and actually collecting points with the
incantation "N. E. OPEN. IN." (It’s certainly no less inspiring than
"Come here, Mr. Watson; I want you!")

We had another product in which PS had no interest: the PDP-11
version of *Zork I*. We sent product announcements to various places,
including a newsletter for PDP-11 users, and as a result, the first copy
of *Zork I* sold was a PDP-11 version! It came on an eight-inch
floppy disk with a manual that I wrote and Joel had reproduced from
a typewritten master.

By the end of 1980, the version of ZIP for the Apple II had been
created by Bruce, who had designed puzzles for the original *Zork* before
graduating from M.I.T. and going to work for Apple Computer Inc.
Apple *Zork I* proved more popular than the TRS-80 version; PS sold
over 6000 copies in eight months.

The first press reviews of *Zork I* were encouraging. In February 1981,
BYTE magazine said, "No single advance in the science of Adventure
has been as bold and exciting as the introduction of Personal Software
Inc.’s *Zork, The Great Underground  Empire*. . . . That the program is
entertaining, eloquent, witty, and precisely written is almost beside the
point. Unlike the kingdoms of the Adventures for machines with 16K
bytes of memory and far from the classic counter-earthiness of the
Colossal Cave in the original Adventure, *Zork* can be felt and
touched — experienced, if you will — through the care and
attention to detail the authors have rendered.... [A] most excellent and
memorable work of computerized fiction."

Mike Dornbrook was enlisted to test *Zork I* for bugs and other bad
features, because he had some experience with computers but no
experience with the original *Zork*, exactly like our intended audience.
(One of his contributions was the alternate — and, some say, more
logical — solution to the Loud Room puzzle, which was added only
after the first users of *Zork I* asked so often for hints for that
puzzle). He played it so much that he memorized the entire geography,
and he fell in love with the game. He was convinced that it would attract a
cult following, although others thought it would last maybe a year
on the market and then fade away, like a video game. He urged the
company to start planning spin-off products, like maps, hints, posters,
T-shirts, etc. So the first published release of *Zork I* had another feature
added, a "small piece of paper" in the artist’s studio that said something
like "Write to Infocom, P.O. Box 120, Cambridge, Mass. 02142 for
info on other products, including Movement Assistance Planners (M.
A.P.s) and Hierarchical Information for Novice Treasure Seekers (H.I.N.
T.S.)." Besides leaving the door open for an after-market in *Zork*
accessories, we wanted to start building a mailing list of customers
for future direct mailings (like the one you are reading!).

Meanwhile, Dave was designing Zork II. At first, the most straightforward
approach seemed to be to use everything left out of *Zork I* and
simply convert it from MDL to ZIL. But Dave’s active imagination kept
inventing new puzzles that virtually begged to be implemented. So the
final design left out the Royal Puzzle and the "end-game" (both to
appear in *Zork III*) and instead included the Wizard of Frobozz, the
garden, and the new diamond maze. (The last was re-oriented to the
compass based on Mike’s belief that "southpaw" should be a hint.) The
last of the original puzzles — the long slide and "sending for the
brochure" — were left out of *Zork III* and didn’t reappear until
*Sorcerer*.

Mike Dornbrook was enlisted again to fulfill mail orders for
personalized hints. Joel collected orders from the post office box,
passed orders for maps and posters to his Significant Other for fulfillment,
gave requests for hints to Mike, and gave me the numerous
small checks to deposit in the bank. Mike created personalized hints off
the top of his head, typing them on an old office typewriter. (When
Mike started business school in September 1981, he founded a
separate company, the Zork User’s Group, and took over all mail-order
sales. Only then did he computerize the operation. In 1983, Mike came
back to work for Infocom, bringing Z.U.G. with him.)

Now that the company had a flesh-and-blood product, how could a
small group of hackers market and sell it? One possibility was to
produce it ourselves and distribute it through computer chain stores. But
that meant devoting time and energy to finding suppliers, producing packages,
supporting users, and so on. Another possibility was to
contract with a software publisher, but which one? Joel contacted
Microsoft, but they were already publishing the original "Colossal
Cave" adventure game — the one that inspired Zork — and by the time
*Zork* fan Bill Gates heard of our offer, Infocom was deep in
negotiations with Personal Software Inc. (PS).

PS had several good features: it was the first true publisher of
software developed by others; it was the leading publisher of
computer games at the time; and it had strong ties to Software Arts Inc.,
where VisiCalc was invented (*requiescant in pace*), and where
*Zork I* was demonstrated in February 1980. PS agreed in June to publish
*Zork I* and sent us an advance on royalties, our first bonafide income!
Sales began in December, and over the next nine months PS sold about
1500 copies of the TRS-80 version<sup>*</sup>.

Also in June, we paid for a search of trademark records in preparation
for registering "Zork" as our own trademark. We discovered that
Mattel Inc. had registered "Mighty Zork" in 1973 for a toy model
motorcycle, but that registration was cancelled in October 1979. Other
trademarks discovered in the search were the likes of Zorr, Zorak, Zark,
and Zowees (all by Mattel); Zogg, Zon, Zak, Zok, Zot, Zonk, and
Zerak; and variations on Mork and Ork (by Paramount Pictures). Not to
mention the Zork Hardware Company of El Paso and Albuquerque.

*Zork II* was offered to PS in April and licensed in June 1981, about the
same time that Joel graduated and became Infocom’s first salaried
employee. But we had serious concerns about PS’s commitment,
even to *Zork I*. After an initial rush of advertising, *Zork I* seemed to join
PS’s range of products as just another game. We were eager to
make new versions and new titles — including *Zork III*, "Zork: the
Mystery" (Deadline), and "Zorks in Space" (Starcross) — but not if our
publisher wasn’t also eager. The fact was that PS was planning to drop its
line of entertainment software — since their titles neither sold well
over the long term nor brought in enough money to satisfy them —
and to change its name to Visicorp in order to identify closely with its
"Visi-" series of business products<sup>**</sup>.

It now appeared that we had two choices: to negotiate and contract
with another publisher (and to hope for more satisfaction), or to take the
plunge and *become* a publisher. We definitely preferred the second
choice, but that required office space, production facilities, an
advertising agency, and so on — and most of all, money. But we threw
caution to the wind, and hired Mort Rosenthal (who later founded Corporate
Software Inc.) as marketing manager, who found a time-shared
office in Boston’s venerable Faneuil Hall Marketplace, a time-shared
production plant in Randolph, an ad agency in Watertown, an order-taking
service in New Jersey, a supplier of disks in California, and
so on. The money came both from the company’s founders and from a
bank loan that they personally guaranteed.

We announced *Zork II* and our new role as publisher with a Christmas
promotion as eye-catching as we could afford. Thanks to our ad
agency, we had a new style of packaging for both *Zork*s (the stone-built
letters that are still in use), a counter display for stores, ads in major computer
magazines, and direct-mail ads for dealers. We also bought PS’s
entire inventory of *Zork I* (except the TRS-80 version, which they still
wanted to sell) to prevent them from "dumping" it on the market at
bargain prices and lowering the public’s image of "Zork" in general.
Our first shipment went out just in time for Christmas sales.

On New Year’s Day 1982, we moved the company to larger space
at the far end of Cambridge — 55 Wheeler Street. Now we had office
space for everyone, especially for Marc (now vice-president for
product development) to finish *Zork III*. And we had enough space to set
up all the personal computers — instead of shuffling them from one
person’s home to another — for testers to use, and for programmers
to create or adapt ZIPs for Atari, CP/M, IBM PC, and other machines.
*Zork III* was finished in the autumn, about the same time that the
company began hiring people to begin developing its first business
product. But that’s another story.

<hr>

<sup>\*</sup> *Zork I* came under the wing of PS’s New Products Manager, a fellow
named Mitch Kapor, who later founded Lotus Development Corp.

<sup>\*\*</sup> In December 1984, after a long legal tangle with Software Arts over
VisiCalc, Visicorp eventually merged into one of its own spin-off
companies and disappeared.
