Infocom Unix Z-Machine (pez)
Languages and libraries
interpreter for text adventures
SHOW HN2025
Infocom Unix Z-Machine (pez)
Resurrecting Infocom's Unix Z-Machine with Cosmopolitan
christopherdrum.github.io157points
50comments
#456of 3,837 in 2025
Top 12%of 2025 by points
How HN took it
CuriousMostly questions and neutral comments
3 positive, 6 neutral or asking, 0 mixed, 2 critical, out of 11 comments about the project. Thread score +0.08.
Execution: 3 for, 2 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Old code compiling and running with minimal effort is impressive
From 2 comments
Its interesting to see how developers get into a mindset, based on their life experience. What we're seeing here is 40 year old code compile and run with minimal effort. Largely…
bruce511 on HNAbsolutely amazing. Good work. It downloaded and ran on Arch with no problem.
fredsmith219 on HN
Works on Arch Linux and runs Zork
From 2 comments
Absolutely amazing. Good work. It downloaded and ran on Arch with no problem.
fredsmith219 on HNYay, this works :-) West of House You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here.
hans_0l0 on HN
Objections
Launching the binaries fails on some Linux setups due to Mono/binfmt conflicts
From 2 comments
What is going on here? [~/Downloads] $ chmod +x zork* [~/Downloads] $ ./zork1 Cannot open assembly './zork1': File does not contain a valid CIL image.
hans_0l0 on HNNo wine... but something something .NET : mono
hans_0l0 on HN
Questions
Why does running the zork binary give a CIL image error
From 1 comment
What is going on here? [~/Downloads] $ chmod +x zork* [~/Downloads] $ ./zork1 Cannot open assembly './zork1': File does not contain a valid CIL image.
hans_0l0 on HN
Alternatives named
Lost Pig
From 1 comment
My absolute favorite text adventure in recent years is Lost Pig. Alas, it is not compatible with the UNIX port this post is about, but it is a delightful game with a unique…
ChristopherDrum on HN
Scott Adams interpreter
From 1 comment
(1) The UCSD p-Machine was contemporaneous and made it feasible to compile Pascal for machines like the 6502 which were terrible targets for conventional compilers. It was…
PaulHoule on HN