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Saving a game of zork?
Posted: April 19th, 2015, 10:41 pm
by sabea002
When I try to save a game of Zork running on CP/M 2.2b it will run me through the save prompts, but I will get a "Failed." message. Is it possible to save a game on the clone or do I have to take some extra steps?
Thanks!
Re: Saving a game of zork?
Posted: April 20th, 2015, 9:39 am
by AltairClone
Probably not enough space left on the floppy. A game save requires at least 14K. Also, be sure to type in a save file name even though it says "zork.sav" is the default.
Mike
Re: Saving a game of zork?
Posted: April 20th, 2015, 11:50 am
by JNZ
That's crazy, I had the exact same question last night. Also, if the default zork.dsk is too full, is there a way to specify another drive in Zork, or do you have to use the admin menu to simulate swapping a floppy disk?
This is slightly unrelated, but the reason I chose Zork is because I figure it's stable, and hard to crash the machine with it. I had had my Altair running CP/M with a remote serial terminal, and even with DDT I was able to put the machine in a state where ^C did nothing. Since I wasn't home for the weekend, I couldn't use it at all. How do you guys deal with that?
Re: Saving a game of zork?
Posted: April 20th, 2015, 1:24 pm
by Tor
Good question, JNZ.
That's something I would l like to hear ideas about as well. I wish to operate my Altair Clone from the other side of the world where I spend half my time. So far I have been thinking about rigging up something to remotely power cycle it. I don't think I can realistically control the front panel switches though..
Re: Saving a game of zork?
Posted: April 20th, 2015, 3:21 pm
by AltairClone
JNZ wrote:Also, if the default zork.dsk is too full, is there a way to specify another drive in Zork, or do you have to use the admin menu to simulate swapping a floppy disk?
Zork is broken down into three completely independent loads: zork1.com (and .dat), zork2.com (and .dat), and zork3.com (and .dat). You can independently copy these to drives B: and/or C:
Switch to drive B: or C: in CP/M to make the new drive the default, then run zork. E.g.:
A>B:
B>ZORK2
Mike
Re: Saving a game of zork?
Posted: April 20th, 2015, 7:55 pm
by gmh
JNZ wrote:is there a way to specify another drive in Zork
You can specify a drive when you use SAVE or RESTORE.
I have ZORK.DSK mounted in the B: drive and save to A:.
See below;
Code: Select all
B>ZORK1
ZORK I: The Great Underground Empire
...
>SAVE
Load SAVE disk then enter file name.
(default file name is ZORK1.SAV).
Type <ENTER> to continue > A:ZORK1.SAV
Load Game Disk if it was removed.
Type <ENTER> to continue >
Re: Saving a game of zork?
Posted: April 20th, 2015, 9:21 pm
by sabea002
AltairClone wrote:Probably not enough space left on the floppy. A game save requires at least 14K. Also, be sure to type in a save file name even though it says "zork.sav" is the default.
Mike
That fixed it! I had a feeling that it would be a simple solution. I just erased the files for zork 2 and 3 (using the ERA command) to make room on the disk for saves.