ZORK for Windows XP?

[cvga]

I've been cleaning up my basement and ran across a CD with infocom games for Windows 95. I wanted to show it to my kids but my computer is running XP so I get an error message. Is there a way for me to run this in XP or a place where I can get a relatively inexpensive version? If not, I'll fire up the old C-64 one of these days.

[cvga]

OK, evidently these will run in XP if you download Windows Frotz first. Looks like I'll be able to enjoy this game again!

[Atariman]

You should also be able to run it in Win 95 compatibility mode. (Right click on the file you want to run, click properties, check out the compatibility tab)

[Classic Pac]

Speaking of Zork have you checked this out http://www.infocom-if.org/downloads/downloads.html

[oesii]

I've also played the Infocom games online through java to pass time at work, I mean when I have free time

 

http://www.xs4all.nl/~pot/infocom/

[classics]

All the Infocom games can be freely downloaded now. Zork should run on any of the free GPL Z-machine interpreters perfectly.

 

Steve

[Reaperman]

All the Infocom games can be freely downloaded now. Zork should run on any of the free GPL Z-machine interpreters perfectly.

 

Steve

all of them? That battletech game was loads of fun.

I've been curious about this for a while, aside from the 'nobody cares about' factor, what requirements have to be met before a game can be freely downloaded? I know that there several games out there freely downloadable that I can't imagine their (long gone) publishers releasing to the public. I don't know the story on infocom (they've been giving the text zorks away for a long time) but more in general. is it a certain type of bankruptcy in those other cases?

Edited November 17, 2008 by Reaperman

[fiddlepaddle]

I've been curious about this for a while, aside from the 'nobody cares about' factor, what requirements have to be met before a game can be freely downloaded? I know that there several games out there freely downloadable that I can't imagine their (long gone) publishers releasing to the public.

 

I'm not an attorney, and if you are really serious about getting the most accurate answer, you may want to seek one out, but it's not as simple as it seems.

 

There are several ways a game (or song, or any IP) could become freely available in the US including:

a) the holder of the right can release it as public domain, or as shareware, or open source (under various OS licenses)

b) if the IP violations remain undefended for a period of time, a statute of limitations runs out.

c) in some cases, software may have been protected by a treaty with a government that has gone away.

d) after a period of time after the death of the creator.

 

There are probably other ways, as well. There are also differences between copyrights, patents, & trademarks. And other countries have different rules.

[jbanes]

a) the holder of the right can release it as public domain, or as shareware, or open source (under various OS licenses)

This is the way that most old software becomes legal. Since current copyright law is Life + 70 years, copyrights are effectively infinite. In result, the current owner must give the software away for it to be legal. "Abandonware" is not legal, though the current owners simply don't care in about 95% of the cases.

 

b) if the IP violations remain undefended for a period of time, a statute of limitations runs out.

I am not a lawyer either, but my understanding is that Statue of Limitations is only for crimes. Copyright infringement is a civil suit. While your right to sue may weaken depending on how long it has been since the last infringement occurred, there is (AFAIK) no limit. The only onus is to prove that there is significant, ongoing damage.

 

d) after a period of time after the death of the creator.

Current law is 70 years after death. That's a LOOOONNNNGGG time to wait.

 

There are also differences between copyrights, patents, & trademarks. And other countries have different rules.

Surprisingly, the laws are fairly consistent between countries. Since most first-world countries are signatories to the Berne Convention, the difference in protection is often as little as only a few years.

[supercat]

I am not a lawyer either, but my understanding is that Statue of Limitations is only for crimes. Copyright infringement is a civil suit. While your right to sue may weaken depending on how long it has been since the last infringement occurred, there is (AFAIK) no limit. The only onus is to prove that there is significant, ongoing damage.

 

The statute of limitations means that if you make an illegal copy of the software today, and never again, the owner will not be able to prosecute you in more than something like three years' time for today's infringement. So if you go three years without infringement, you're in the clear. On the other hand, if you've been infringing for years and get caught, all the statute of limitations will do is limit damages to those acts of infringement that occurred within the last three years.

 

From a practical standpoint, however, companies are going to send out a cease-and-desist notice before they file a lawsuit over something that's widely perceived as abandonware, and if you comply with the notice they're not going to bother with anything beyond that. If there has been no effort to market software, proving actual damages will be essentially impossible. While they could seek statutory damages beyond the actual damages, they'd have to find a jury that was willing to go along with that.

 

Current law is 70 years after death. That's a LOOOONNNNGGG time to wait.

 

For all practical purposes, Congress has ignored the 'limited times' requirement of the copyright power. As soon as Mickey's copyright is about to expire, the time will be upped to 70 years.

 

I wouldn't mind letting companies have a long copyright term if they had to do something to maintain it (as is the case with trademarks, which are allowed to persist indefinitely). The granting of perpetual copyright terms by default, however, means that very little stuff will ever usefully enter the public domain. If someone in 2100 finds a work that says "Copyright 1980 John Smith", then unless they can find an obituary for the particular John Smith that wrote the work in question, they'll have no way of knowing whether the copyright has lapsed. That's simply absurd. IMHO, anyone wanting copyrights beyond a certain duration should be required to tag their works with something like a GUID and register it.

 

Surprisingly, the laws are fairly consistent between countries. Since most first-world countries are signatories to the Berne Convention, the difference in protection is often as little as only a few years.

 

That used to be the case. Not anymore. Many other countries have declined to jump on the Mickey Forever bandwagon.

[jbanes]

I wouldn't mind letting companies have a long copyright term if they had to do something to maintain it (as is the case with trademarks, which are allowed to persist indefinitely).

That has been my opinion as well. I don't mind Disney getting their extended copyright as long as they leave everyone else alone. I figure we should go back to a 14-20 year copyright with a required registration and renewal every 5 years thereafter. If the owner fails to register or renew after their initial copyright period, the material will fall into public domain. It may cause businesses to appear that expend a great deal of effort in maintaining copyrights, but at least the bastards have to work for it! And since they must register the copyright, the materials won't be lost to time.

 

Surprisingly, the laws are fairly consistent between countries. Since most first-world countries are signatories to the Berne Convention, the difference in protection is often as little as only a few years.

 

That used to be the case. Not anymore. Many other countries have declined to jump on the Mickey Forever bandwagon.

The US was one of the last countries to cave on the Berne Convention. The Berne Convention calls for a minimum of 50 years. Many European countries have far longer copyrights. "Harmonizing" with Europe was Congress's key excuse for extending the copyright for so long. (See: The EU Directive on Harmonizing the Term of Copyright Protection)

 

Stupid.

[thrax]

I've played infocom games on WinXP through emulation of a vintage system. In my case an apple ii version. I have many of the original games from my apple ii days. Since they are text only playing them on any platform is good.

[davepesc]

The statute of limitations means that if you make an illegal copy of the software today, and never again, the owner will not be able to prosecute you in more than something like three years' time for today's infringement. So if you go three years without infringement, you're in the clear. On the other hand, if you've been infringing for years and get caught, all the statute of limitations will do is limit damages to those acts of infringement that occurred within the last three years.

 

Like everyone else in this thread, I'm not a lawyer either, but this doesn't sound right. Unless, of course, you make the copy and destroy it immediately. Otherwise, you're breaking the law again every time you use that disk.

[fiddlepaddle]

Like everyone else in this thread, I'm not a lawyer either...

Wonder if there ARE any copyright attorneys who also read this and might be able to clarify this point?

 

I'm not sure that playing a game today that was copied illegally fifteen years ago is illegal. If it was, anybody who played one of those bootleg coin-ops of Galaxian was breaking the law whenever they plugged a quarter in. I think the illegal act is profiting, not copying. Also, just because it's illegal, doesn't mean it prosecutable.

 

Is a judge breaking the law when he reads an illegal copy of "Harry Potter and the Crazed Twilight Fan" to determine if it is, in fact, illegal?

[supercat]

Unless, of course, you make the copy and destroy it immediately. Otherwise, you're breaking the law again every time you use that disk.

 

A copy of a game in RAM that exists purely to run the game would likely be regarded as ephemeral, and not really a "copy" as such.

[jbanes]

A copy of a game in RAM that exists purely to run the game would likely be regarded as ephemeral, and not really a "copy" as such.

RAM copies were codified in the extension of Copyright Law that recognized computer programs (TITLE 17 > CHAPTER 1 > § 117) as an explicit exception. Paragraph (a), subparagraph (1) says:

 

[it is not an infringement if] a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner

 

Thus you would only get in trouble for the permanent copy of the program. Running the program would not trigger copyright law.

[_The Doctor__]

Hello all,

 

I still have the original zork and hitchikers disks... on the 800xl. I think I'll give the XP version a shot, are there any differences? I know a few people have the infocom stuff on Maxflash cartridges now and enjoy not having to wait for drive access. It works very well !

_The Doctor__

[_The Doctor__]

Here you go gang,

 

Guess what I have on my STe emulating a mac? Just because I can

 

http://www.infocom-if.org/downloads/downloads.html

 

Thank you Steve & Atarimax for the info. Next stop the native ST version...

 

My 12 year old daughter wants an 8 bit for Christmas with a multicart and disk drive! How many days till Christmas?

 

_The Doctor__

[supercat]

Thus you would only get in trouble for the permanent copy of the program. Running the program would not trigger copyright law.

 

Out of curiosity, is there a similar exemption for audiovisual materials displayed on digital equipment? A DVD player or equivalent device must of necessity create a copy of the image in a frame buffer, and the vast majority of modern television sets do likewise.

[jbanes]

Out of curiosity, is there a similar exemption for audiovisual materials displayed on digital equipment? A DVD player or equivalent device must of necessity create a copy of the image in a frame buffer, and the vast majority of modern television sets do likewise.

I'm not aware of any such exception. However, I believe that it might be legally seen as a performance rather than a copy.

 

When that law was written, computers tended to load the entire software into memory before executing. And since there only the transient aspect differentiated disk from RAM (an aspect that did not exist in all computers!), they wrote the law to differentiate copies required for operation vs. long-term archival.

 

(Normally I think the courts would have seen such transient copies as fair-use. but there had been a lawsuit a few years earlier that had somehow prevailed on the legal theory that running maintenance software on a client computer required that a separate license be acquired to load that software into RAM. The support company had till then been operating under the assumption that taking the disks with them from computer to computer was okay since they had properly purchased disks.)

 

In the case of AV equipment however, only pieces of the data are decoded at any particular time. i.e. You're not copying the DVD to your television and then playing it, you are reading each frame of data and displaying it on a device intended to display a frame at a time.