Infocom

Infocom was the producer of numerous computer games, primarily interactive fiction (text adventures). Infocom was well-known for the parsers used in its interactive fiction which allowed the user to type in complicated instructions to the game. Unlike some adventure games which could understand commands like "get apple", Infocom adventures could understand commands like "get the green apple on the table."

The first (and very successful) game Zork was created in 1977, two years before the creators founded the company Infocom. The game was finally released in 1980.

Other popular and innovative titles included the rest of the Zork series, 1984's The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy, and 1985's A Mind Forever Voyaging[?].

In 1986, Infocom merged with Activision, another well-known company in the computer gaming industry, and was shut down in 1989.

Infocom published dozens of titles during its history. Some of its more well known titles:

• Zork
• Suspended
• Enchanter
• The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy[?]
• A Mind Forever Voyaging[?]
• Planetfall[?]
• The Lurking Horror[?]
• Deadline[?]
• Cutthroats[?]
• Infidel[?]

Legacy

Many Infocom titles remain available throughout the Internet community (legally in the case of the Zork trilogy, but illegally in most other cases). They are available as Z-machine story files, which require a Z-machine emulator (a Z-code interpreter) to play. These interpreters have been written for numerous platforms, ranging from older computers to palmtops to the IBM PC and Apple Macintosh, and even Java.

External Links

• A site about Infocom's history, games and authors: http://www.infocom-if.org/
• An excellent site detailing a timeline of Infocom's founding, releases and eventual dissolution: http://www.csd.uwo.ca/Infocom/Articles/timeline
• A very detailed examination of Infocom's creative successes and marketing failures: http://mit.edu/6.933/www/Fall2000/infocom/
• A gallery of Infocom box art: http://www.gregor.bond007.co.uk/infcover.htm