or
.B .zblorb
and load it if found.
-
+.P
If the file supplied on the command line is a Blorb file, then
.B Frotz
will check to see if a Z-code file is contained within. If not found, then
.B Frotz
will complain and exit.
-
+.P
An alternatively-named Blorb file can be supplied as the optional second
parameter to the command line invocation.
-
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B Frotz
is a Z-Machine interpreter. The Z-machine is a virtual machine designed
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.
+supports version 1.1. See
+.B Z-MACHINE STANDARDS
+below.
.P
-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 version of
+.B 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.
.P
This manpage is for Frotz with the dumb interface. Dumb Frotz does not
-support sound-effects, graphics, or colors.
-
+support sound-effects, graphics, colors, or even screen-handling (for
+instance,
+.BR curses (3)).
+Its purpose is to provide a Z-machine interpreter with the absolute
+minimum system requirements or for applications where those features are
+not needed
.SH OPTIONS
.TP
.B \-a
Watch attribute setting. Setting and clearing of attributes on objects
will be noted in debugging messages.
-
.TP
.B \-A
Watch attribute testing. Every time the Z-machine tests an attribute
value, the test and the result will be reported.
-
.TP
.B \-f [irc | ansi | normal]
Select type of format codes. Dumb Frotz can optionally mark up its
.B normal
or not using this flag at all will result in Dumb Frotz's normal
behavior of not using any sort of markup.
-
.TP
.B \-h N
Text height. Every N lines, a MORE prompt will be printed. Use of
the
.B \-m
option renders this option moot.
-
.TP
.B \-i
Ignore fatal errors. If a Z-Machine interpreter encounters a zcode error
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.
-
.TP
.B \-I N
Set the interpreter number. Infocom designed the Z-machine such that a
game could tell on what kind of machine the interpreter was running.
See INTERPRETER NUMBER below.
-
.TP
.B \-L <filename>
When the game starts, load this saved game file.
-
.TP
.B \-m
Turn off MORE prompts. This can be desirable when using a printing
terminal.
-
.TP
.B \-o
Watch object movement. This option enables debugging messages from the
interpreter which describe the moving of objects in the object tree.
-
.TP
.B \-O
Watch object location. These debugging messages detail the locations of
objects in the object tree.
-
.TP
.B \-p
Plain ASCII output only. This inhibits the output of accented letters
reasonable alternatives. This may be necessary on devices lacking these
characters. The OE/oe dipthongs are missing from the Latin-1 set.
These are handled as well.
-
.TP
.B \-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.
-
+Alter the
+.I @piracy
+opcode. The
+.I @piracy
+opcode was never used by Infocom. This switch is really only useful for
+those who like to toy around with Z-code.
.TP
.B \-q
Quiet mode. Suppress startup messages such as "Loading zork1.z3".
-
.TP
.B \-r xxx
Set runtime options. This option may be used repeatedly. See
\.B CONFIGURATION
below. There is no need to prepend a backslash.
-
.TP
.B \-R <path>
Restricted read/write. Reading and writing files will be restricted
cause Frotz to write or read only to the provided path and nowhere else.
Then the controlling process can then watch that directory for changes
and need not worry about someone scribbling or snooping who-knows-where.
-
.TP
.B \-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
+initial seed value on every restart. By default, the random number
+generator is initialized based on the system clock; this allows you to
+make the random number generator predictable, for use in recorded
+scripts or debugging. For instance,
.B Curses
-which make random decisions before the first input (such that the hot
-key Alt\-S does not really help).
-
+makes random decisions before the first input (such that the hot key
+Alt\-S does not really help).
.TP
.B \-S N
Set the transcript width. By default your transcript files are formatted
to a width of 80 columns per line, regardless of the current text width.
This switch allows you to change this setting. In particular, use \-S 0
to deactivate automatic line splitting in transcript files.
-
.TP
.B \-t
Sets the Z-machine's
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.
-
.TP
.B \-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.
-
.TP
.B \-w N
Manually sets the text width. This should not be necessary except in
special circumstances.
-
.TP
.B \-x
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 "g", "x" or "z" for different purposes.
-
.TP
.B \-v
Show version information and exit. This will display the version of
Frotz, some information about what's enabled and what's not, the commit
-date of the source code, and a git(1) hash of that commit.
-
+date of the source code, and a
+.BR git (1)
+hash of that commit.
.TP
.B \-Z N
Error checking mode.
.br
-0 = don't report errors.
+ 0 = don't report errors.
.br
-1 = report first instance of an error.
+ 1 = report first instance of an error.
.br
-2 = report all errors.
+ 2 = report all errors.
.br
-3 = exit after any error.
+ 3 = exit after any error.
.br
Default is 1 (report first instance of an error).
-
.SH INTERPRETER NUMBER
The interpreter number is a setting in the Z-machine header which is
used to tell the game on what sort of machine the interpreter is
the
.B \-I
option is available.
-
+.P
An interpreter should choose the interpreter number most suitable for
the machine it will run on. In Versions up to 5, the main consideration
is that the behaviour of 'Beyond Zork' depends on the interpreter
expect to be run only on the interpreters for a particular machine.
There are, for instance, specifically Amiga versions. The DECSystem-20
was Infocom's own in-house mainframe.
-
+.P
For Infocom's four V6 games, the interpreter number will be
automatically chosen based on the title and release number. Of course,
this can be overridden at the command line.
-
+.P
Infocom used the following interpreter numbers:
-
-.PP
-.BR 1
-.BR \ \ DECSystem\ 20
-
-.PP
-.BR 2
-.BR \ \ Apple\ IIe
-
-.PP
-.BR 3
-.BR \ \ Macintosh
-
-.PP
-.BR 4
-.BR \ \ Amiga
-
-.PP
-.BR 5
-.BR \ \ Atari\ ST
-
-.PP
-.BR 6
-.BR \ \ IBM\ PC
-
-.PP
-.BR 7
-.BR \ \ Commodore 128
-
-.PP
-.BR 8
-.BR \ \ Commodore 64
-
-.PP
-.BR 9
-.BR \ \ Apple\ IIc
-
-.PP
-.BR 10
-.BR \ \ Apple\ IIgs
-
-.PP
-.BR 11
-.BR \ \ Tandy\ Color
-
+.IP
+.B 1 \ DECSystem\ 20
+.br
+.B 2 \ Apple\ IIe
+.br
+.B 3 \ Macintosh
+.br
+.B 4 \ Amiga
+.br
+.B 5 \ Atari\ ST
+.br
+.B 6 \ IBM\ PC
+.br
+.B 7 \ Commodore 128
+.br
+.B 8 \ Commodore 64
+.br
+.B 9 \ Apple\ IIc
+.br
+.B 10 Apple\ IIgs
+.br
+.B 11 Tandy\ Color
.SH CONFIGURATION
Unlike it's curses-using or SDL-using siblings,
.P
.SS General Commands
-
.TP
.B \ehelp
Show help message.
.B \~
(blank) Any other output line.
-
.SH UNICODE
.B Dumb Frotz
supports Unicode glyphs by way of UTF-8 if the terminal used supports
right mouse button to bring up the VT FONTS menu. Depending on how
xterm was installed, you may see an option for "UTF-8 Fonts" which will
allow Unicode to be properly displayed.
-
+.P
Getting normal xterm to behave like this all the time can vary from
system to system. Other terminal emulators have their own ways of being
set to use UTF-8 character encoding.
-
+.P
If you are using some sort of wrapper around
.B dfrotz,
and want to make use of Unicode, it is the responsibility of the wrapper
ISO-8859-15 is more or less identical to ISO-8859-1 except that the
OE/oe dipthongs are supported, replacing the seldom-used 1/2 and 1/4
glyphs. See also
-.B luit(1)
-.B charsets(7)
-.B iso_8859-1(7)
+.BR luit (1)
+.BR charsets (7)
+.BR iso_8859-1 (7)
and
-.B iso_8859-15(7)
+.BR iso_8859-15 (7)
for more information.
.SS LOCALE
.B "locale"
will tell you what is currently in use. Using
.B "locale -a"
-
will show you what's available. Then set your LANG evironmental
variable to something appropriate by using one of these commands:
-
+.IP
export LANG=C.UTF-8
export LANG=en_US.utf8
-
+.P
This can be put in your shell configuration file, be it
.B .profile,
.B .bash_profile,
.B .login,
.B .bashrc,
-or whatever.
-
-It can also be set system-wide in the equivalent files in
+or whatever. It can also be set system-wide in the equivalent files in
.B /etc.
.SS SEE ALSO
-.B ash(1)
-.B bash(1)
-.B csh(1)
-.B ksh(1)
-.B sh(1)
-.B zsh(1)
+.BR ash (1)
+.BR bash (1)
+.BR csh (1)
+.BR ksh (1)
+.BR sh (1)
+.BR zsh (1)
.SH Z-MACHINE STANDARDS
.B Frotz
mechanism are restricted to the provided path the same as all other file
accesses.
-
.SH ENVIRONMENT
Unlike it's curses-using or SDL-using siblings,
.B dfrotz
does not search any path for game files.
-
.SH FURTHER INFORMATION
.PP
The Frotz homepage is at https://661.org/proj/if/frotz/.
.PP
A
-.BR git(1)
-repository of all versions of Unix Frotz back to 2.32 is available
-for public perusal here:
+.BR git (1)
+repository of all versions of Unix Frotz from 2.32 to the bleeding edge
+is available for public perusal at
.br
-https://gitlab.com/DavidGriffith/frotz/.
+.B https://gitlab.com/DavidGriffith/frotz/.
.PP
-The bleeding edge of Frotz development may be followed there.
-.PP
-Source tarballs are available at the IF Archive or any of its many
-mirrors:
-.br
-http://www.ifarchive.org/
+The Interactive Fiction Archive, at
+.BR https://www.ifarchive.org/ ,
+is a good place to find games to play with Frotz. Various ports and
+builds for Frotz may also be found there.
.PP
Most distributions of Linux and BSD include
.B Frotz
to do something it doesn't currently do, please visit the above Gitlab
website and report your concerns.
-
.SH CAVEATS
-.PP
The Z Machine itself has trouble with the concept of resizing a terminal.
It assumes that once the text height and width are set, they will never
change; even across saves. This made sense when 24x80 terminals were the
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.
-
-.PP
+.P
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:
-.br
+.IP
http://www.microheaven.com/ifguide/
.br
http://www.brasslantern.org/beginners/
.br
http://ifarchive.org/
-
.SH BUGS
This program has no bugs. no bugs. no bugs. no *WHAP* thank you. If
you find one, please report it to the Gitlab site referenced above in
-.B
-FURTHER INFORMATION.
-
+.B FURTHER INFORMATION.
.SH AUTHORS
.B Frotz
.br
The Unix port is currently maintained by David Griffith <dave@661.org>.
-
-.SH "SEE ALSO"
+.SH SEE ALSO
.BR frotz (6)
.BR sfrotz (6)
.BR nitfol (6)
Scope-eye.net Git Repository / liskon_frotz.git / commitdiff