The Z-machine is a virtual machine that was developed by Joel Berez and Marc Blank in 1979 and used by Infocom for its text adventure games . Infocom compiled game code to files containing Z-machine instructions (called story files or Z-code files) and could therefore port its text adventures to a new platform simply by writing a Z-machine implementation for that platform. With the large number of incompatible home computer systems in use at the time, this was an important advantage over using native code or developing a compiler for each system.
136-496: The "Z" of Z-machine stands for Zork , Infocom's first adventure game. Z-code files usually have names ending in .z1, .z2, .z3, .z4, .z5, .z6, .z7, or .z8, where the number is the version number of the Z-machine on which the file is intended to be run, as given by the first byte of the story file. This is a modern convention, however. Infocom itself used extensions of .dat (Data) and .zip (ZIP = Z-machine Interpreter Program), but
272-414: A Game Master would use in leading players in a tabletop role-playing game . The original 1977 version of the game was a single release, Zork . When it was converted into a commercial software title, it was divided into three episodes, with new and expanded sections added to the latter two episodes. Much of the game world is composed of puzzles that must eventually be solved, such as a set of buttons on
408-594: A command-line interface consisting of terse, abbreviated textual commands. In January 1981, Steve Jobs completely took over the Macintosh project. Jobs and a number of Apple engineers visited Xerox PARC in December 1979, three months after the Lisa and Macintosh projects had begun. After hearing about the pioneering GUI technology being developed at Xerox PARC from former Xerox employees like Raskin, Jobs negotiated
544-402: A data file might have only a data fork with no resource fork. A word processor file could contain its text in the data fork and styling information in the resource fork so that an application that does not recognize the styling information can still read the raw text. On the other hand, these forks would challenge interoperability with different operating systems. In copying or transferring
680-475: A "must-have" for anyone interested in fantasy or adventure games. Family Computing , in late 1983, proclaimed it a classic of the genre and the game that made the adventure genre more than a novelty. Reviewers similarly praised Zork 's second and third episodes. Softline recommended Zork II for its "well-balanced mix of humor, wit, and wry puns" for both new and experienced players. PC Magazine said it would appeal to all players and that
816-697: A Mac OS X application. This allows applications that have not been ported to the Carbon API to run on Mac OS X. This is reasonably seamless, though "classic" applications retain their original Mac OS 9 appearance and do not gain the Mac OS X "Aqua" appearance. Early New World ROM PowerPC-based Macs shipped with Mac OS 9.2 as well as Mac OS X. Mac OS 9.2 had to be installed by the user—it was not installed by default on hardware revisions released after Mac OS X 10.4. Most well-written "classic" Mac OS applications function properly under this environment, but compatibility
952-409: A Mac OS file to a non-Mac system, the default implementations would strip the file of its resource fork. Most data files contained only nonessential information in their resource fork, such as window size and location, but program files would be inoperative without their resources. This necessitated such encoding schemes as BinHex and MacBinary , which allowed a user to encode a dual-forked file into
1088-419: A command transcript feature to keep track of what commands players tried to use unsuccessfully. By the end of June, the game was approximately half the size of the final Zork , and had a substantial community of players for the time. The group added locations such as a volcano and coal mine, and soon shifted their efforts to improving the game's engine and adding the ability to save the player's progress in
1224-467: A dam or a maze to be traversed. Some puzzles have more than one solution. For instance, since the "Loud Room" is too overwhelmingly loud for the player to perform actions, the player can either empty the nearby dam to stop the sound of water falling, or shout "echo" in the room to change its acoustics. In the first episode, or Zork I , a thief character is wandering the underground as well, taking items that have been left behind or even stealing from
1360-717: A design choice that mirrored the group's speaking patterns. The team felt it would both make the system feel less like a computer and also train the player to write commands in a way that the parser could understand rather than ways it would misinterpret. In 1979, Anderson, Blank, Lebling, and five other members of the Dynamic Modelling Group incorporated Infocom as a software company for members to join after leaving MIT. No specific projects were initially agreed upon and Infocom had no paid employees, but discussions were focused on developing software for smaller mainframe computers . Blank and Joel Berez came up with
1496-466: A difficult time for Apple. Initially planned as Mac OS 7.7, it was renumbered "8" to exploit a legal loophole and accomplish Jobs's goal of terminating third-party manufacturers' licenses to System 7 and shutting down the Macintosh clone market. Mac OS 8 added a number of features from the abandoned Copland project, while leaving the underlying operating system unchanged. A multi-threaded Finder
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#17327905392871632-530: A few years after the original release of Mac OS X. Steve Jobs encouraged people to upgrade to Mac OS X by staging a mock funeral for Mac OS 9 at WWDC 2002. PowerPC versions of Mac OS X up to and including Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger include a compatibility layer for running older Mac applications, the Classic Environment. Originally codenamed the "blue box", the environment runs a nearly complete Mac OS 9 operating system, version 9.1 or later, as
1768-590: A focus on plot and added magic spells to the base game, and III was less straightforward, with time-sensitive aspects. Marc Blank constructed Zork III and added gameplay changes such as the modified point system to move the game away from straightforward dungeon exploration. Zork II was offered to Personal Software in April 1981 and the contract was signed in June, but Infocom grew wary of continuing this relationship. The Infocom team felt that Personal Software
1904-648: A free text adventure game partially written by original Infocom implementers Michael Berlyn and Marc Blank to promote Zork: Grand Inquisitor . In 2009 Jolt Online Gaming released Legends of Zork , a freemium browser-based online adventure game. The original Zork games have been re-released in several compilations since Zork Trilogy . They are included in The Lost Treasures of Infocom (1991), Zork Anthology (1994), Classic Text Adventure Masterpieces of Infocom (1996), and Zork Legacy Collection (1996). A graphical port of Zork I for
2040-569: A game that would be a "better" text adventure game, with inputs more complex than Adventure ' s two-word commands and puzzles less obtuse. They believed that their division's MDL programming language would be better suited for processing complex text inputs than the Fortran code used in Adventure . The group was familiar with creating video games: Blank and Anderson had worked on a multiplayer trivia game called Trivia (1976), and Lebling
2176-628: A graphical map and more role-playing and combat elements, and Zork Zero: The Revenge of Megaboz (1988), a prequel game that added graphical elements and menus as well as graphical minigames . Infocom's tenure under Activision was rocky, and rising costs and falling profits, exacerbated by a lack of new products in 1988, led Activision to close Infocom in 1989. Activision returned to the series with several graphic adventure games: Return to Zork (1993), Zork Nemesis: The Forbidden Lands (1996), and Zork: Grand Inquisitor (1997). It also released Zork: The Undiscovered Underground (1997),
2312-477: A grue" was effective, and how despite some physical characteristics being made clear later, players have their own "utterly personal mental image of what a grue looks like". They noted that while it started as a solution to a game problem, it had evolved to become "one of the chief boogiemen in the early history of video games". Zork was the centerpiece of Infocom's game catalog, and Infocom quickly followed it with several more text adventure games using variants of
2448-428: A grue. There is a limit to how much "inventory" one can carry, determined by the combined weight of objects, rather than the quantity. A principal goal of each episode is to collect all the treasures, many of which are hidden behind puzzles. As treasures are collected or tasks are accomplished, the player's score increases, providing a rough measure of how much of the game has been completed. The player may traverse
2584-577: A particular device, led to significant criticism of the operating system, and was a factor in Apple's declining market share at the time. After two aborted attempts at creating a successor to the Macintosh System Software called Taligent and Copland , and a four-year development effort spearheaded by Steve Jobs's return to Apple in 1997, Apple replaced Mac OS with a new operating system in 2001 named Mac OS X . It retained most of
2720-417: A plan to make Zork work on personal microcomputers , which were then beginning to become popular and which would greatly expand the audience for the game. Although microcomputers had very limited memory space compared to mainframe computers, they felt the project might be viable using floppy disks and a custom programming language if the game was cut into two pieces. The pair worked on the project through
2856-427: A range of personal computers beginning in 1980. In Zork , the player explores the abandoned Great Underground Empire in search of treasure. The player moves between the game's hundreds of locations and interacts with objects by typing commands in natural language that the game interprets. The program acts as a narrator, describing the player's location and the results of the player's commands. It has been described as
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#17327905392872992-433: A research staff member. Their work was inspired by Colossal Cave Adventure , a text-based game that is the first well-known example of interactive fiction and the first well-known adventure game . Adventure was immensely popular among the small population of computer users of the time and a big hit at MIT in early 1977. By the end of May, players had managed to completely solve it. The four programmers began to design
3128-448: A result, a small community of people, many of whom had been involved in playing and contributing to Trivia , would "snoop" on the system for new programs. They found the new "Zork" adventure game and spread word of it under that name. This community—dozens or possibly hundreds of players, according to Lebling—interacted with the developers as they created the game, playtesting additions and submitting bug reports. The implementers added
3264-455: A sentiment echoed by Softalk . In the years after its release, Zork I received more reviews praising the game in relation to Adventure and the genre. Jerry Pournelle recommended the game in his long-running Byte column, stating in 1983 that "if you liked Adventure and wanted more ... I guarantee you'll love Zork ". Computer Gaming World in 1982, PC Magazine in 1982, and SoftSide in 1983 all recommended it as
3400-409: A service technician who had been hired earlier that year. Apple's concept for the Macintosh deliberately sought to minimize the user's awareness of the operating system. Many basic tasks that required more operating system knowledge on other systems could be accomplished by mouse gestures and graphic controls on a Macintosh. This would differentiate it from its contemporaries such as MS-DOS , which use
3536-443: A single stream, or inversely take a single stream so-encoded and reconstitute it into a dual-forked file usable by Mac OS. As part of Apple's goal of creating a computer with appliance-like simplicity, there is no explicit distinction made between the operating system software and the hardware it runs on. Because of this, early versions of the operating system do not have a distinct name. The software consists of two user-visible files:
3672-511: A time, except for desk accessories, though special application shells such as Multi-Mac or Switcher (discussed under MultiFinder ) could work around this. Visible changes are best reflected in the version number of the Finder , where major leaps are found between 1.x, 4.x, 5.x, and 6.x. In the late 1990s, Apple retroactively gave these older releases a single name. System: Introduced screenshots using ⌘ Command + ⇧ Shift + 3 Towards
3808-794: A true multi-user operating system, Mac OS 9 does allow multiple desktop users to have their own data and system settings. An improved Sherlock search engine added several new search plug-ins. Mac OS 9 also provides a much improved memory implementation and management. AppleScript was improved to allow TCP/IP and networking control. Mac OS 9 also makes the first use of the centralized Apple Software Update to find and install OS and hardware updates. Other new features included its on-the-fly file encryption software with code signing and Keychain technologies, Remote Networking and File Server packages, and much improved list of USB drivers . Mac OS 9 also added some transitional technologies to help application developers adopt some Mac OS X features before
3944-402: A two-part game, it soon became clear that the second half would not fit into the allotted space. As a result, the game was split again into Zork II: The Wizard of Frobozz and Zork III: The Dungeon Master . According to Lebling, splitting the game into episodes led to different atmospheres: Zork I was focused on exploration and Adventure -style gameplay, II had more of
4080-439: A version 5 story can be up to 256K in length, and a version 8 story can be up to 512k in length. Though these sizes may seem small by today's computing standards, for text-only adventures, these are large enough for elaborate games. During the 1990s, Graham Nelson drew up a Z-Machine Standard based on detailed studies of the existing Infocom files. The standard also includes extensions used by his newer versions, as well as links to
4216-666: A visit to see the Xerox Alto computer and Smalltalk development tools in exchange for Apple stock options. The final Lisa and Macintosh operating systems use concepts from the Xerox Alto, but many elements of the graphical user interface were created by Apple including the menu bar, pull-down menus, and the concepts of drag and drop and direct manipulation . Unlike the IBM PC , which uses 8 kB of system ROM for power-on self-test (POST) and basic input/output system ( BIOS ),
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4352-438: A way that the virtual machine became independent from any user interface. This allowed more variety in porting Frotz. One of the stranger ports is also one of the simplest: an instant messaging bot is wrapped around a version of Frotz with the minimum I/O functionality creating a bot with which one can play most Z-machine games using an instant messaging client. Another popular client for macOS and other Unix-like systems
4488-512: A white house, with a boarded front door; most of the game occurs underground, as do the subsequent episodes. In Zork II the player learns of the Flatheads, and meets the Wizard of Frobozz, who was once a respected enchanter but was exiled by Lord Dimwit Flathead when his powers began to fade. The wizard appears randomly throughout the game and casts spells that begin with the letter "F" on
4624-527: Is virtual memory support, an essential subsystem anticipated for years, which only exists for previous Systems in a third party extension named Virtual from Connectix . Accompanying this was a move to 32-bit memory addressing , necessary for the ever-increasing amounts of RAM available to the Motorola 68030 CPU, and 68020 CPUs with a 68851 PMMU . This process involves making all of the routines in OS code use
4760-631: Is Zoom. It supports the same Quetzal save-format, but the packaging of the file-structure is different. Zork Zork is a text adventure game first released in 1977 by developers Tim Anderson , Marc Blank , Bruce Daniels , and Dave Lebling for the PDP-10 mainframe computer . The original developers and others, as the company Infocom , expanded and split the game into three titles— Zork I: The Great Underground Empire , Zork II: The Wizard of Frobozz , and Zork III: The Dungeon Master —which were released commercially for
4896-474: Is a consolidation release of the Macintosh system software, producing a complete, stable, and long-lasting operating system. Two major hardware introductions requiring additional support under System 6 are the 68030 processor and 1.44 MB SuperDrive debuting with the Macintosh IIx and Macintosh SE/30 . Later updates include support for the first specialized laptop features with the introduction of
5032-408: Is also made in title and refrain of Nerdcore rapper MC Frontalot 's song " It Is Pitch Dark ". Writer Bernard Perron, while discussing horror in video games, stated that being hunted by a grue was a "terrifying situation no player had ever experienced before". IGN regarded the grue as one of the best video game villains, stating that the dialogue "It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by
5168-435: Is assured only if the software was written to be unaware of the actual hardware and to interact solely with the operating system. The Classic Environment is not available on Intel-based Mac systems or the latest Apple silicon Macs due to the incompatibility of Mac OS 9 with both the x86 and ARM hardware. Third-party Macintosh emulators , such as vMac , Basilisk II , and Executor , eventually made it possible to run
5304-474: Is based upon Apple's open source Darwin operating system . An early version of the operating system, Mac OS X Server 1.0 , was released in 1999. It retains the "Platinum" appearance from the Classic Mac OS and even resembles OPENSTEP in places, with the first version to arrive with the new Aqua user interface . The first consumer version, Mac OS X 10.0 , was released on March 24, 2001, supporting
5440-576: Is built-in cooperative multitasking . In System Software 6, this function was optional through the MultiFinder . System 7 also introduced aliases , similar to symbolic links on Unix , shortcuts that were introduced in later versions of Microsoft Windows, and shadows in IBM OS/2 . System extensions were enhanced by being moved to their own subfolder; a subfolder in the System Folder
5576-417: Is credited with having popularized the graphical user interface concept. It was included with every Macintosh that was sold during the era in which it was developed, and many updates to the system software were done in conjunction with the introduction of new Macintosh systems. Apple released the original Macintosh on January 24, 1984. The first version of the system software , which had no official name,
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5712-660: Is not very different from System 7. Mac OS 8.5 focuses on speed and stability, with most 68k code replaced by modern code native to the PowerPC. It also improved the appearance of the user interface, although the theming feature was cut late in development. Mac OS 9, the last major revision of the Classic Mac OS, was released on October 23, 1999. It is generally a steady evolution from Mac OS 8. Early development releases of Mac OS 9 were numbered 8.7. Mac OS 9 added improved support for AirPort wireless networking . It introduced an early implementation of multi-user support. Though not
5848-595: Is presented in a 2019 blog post by Andrew Plotkin. Notably, the Z-machine has no support for garbage collection and ZIL has no concept of Lisp's list system. Interpreters for Z-code files are available on a wide variety of platforms. The Inform website lists links to freely available interpreters for 15 desktop operating systems (including 8-bit microcomputers from the 1980s such as the Apple II , TRS-80 , and ZX Spectrum , and grouping "Unix" and "Windows" as one each), 10 mobile operating systems (including Palm OS and
5984-502: Is still cited as an inspiration for text interfaces such as chatbots . It has also been used, along with other text adventure games, as a framework for testing natural language processing systems. Zork was listed on several lists of the best video games more than a decade after release. In 1992 Computer Gaming World added Zork to its Hall of Fame. It was placed on "best games of all time" lists for Computer Gaming World and Next Generation in 1996, and Next Generation listed
6120-501: Is the successor to Mac OS 9 and the Classic Mac OS legacy. However, unlike the Classic Mac OS, it is a Unix -based operating system built on NeXTSTEP and technology developed at NeXT from the late 1980s until early 1997, when Apple purchased the company, and its CEO Steve Jobs returned to Apple. macOS also makes use of the BSD codebase and the XNU kernel, and its core set of components
6256-530: The Classic Environment within Mac OS X. The final update to the Classic Mac OS was version 9.2.2, released on December 5, 2001. macOS (originally "Mac OS X" and then "OS X") is Apple's current Mac operating system that officially succeeded the Classic Mac OS in 2001. Although it was originally marketed as simply "version 10" of Mac OS, it has a history that is largely independent of the earlier Mac OS releases. The macOS architectural legacy
6392-487: The Classic Environment , a compatibility layer that helped ease the transition to Mac OS X (now macOS). The Macintosh project started in late 1978 with Jef Raskin , who envisioned an easy-to-use, low-cost computer for the average consumer. In September 1979, Raskin began looking for an engineer who could put together a prototype. Bill Atkinson , a member of the Apple Lisa team, introduced Raskin to Burrell Smith ,
6528-608: The Game Boy ), and four interpreter platforms (Emacs, Java, JavaScript, and Scratch). According to Nelson, it is "possibly the most portable virtual machine ever created". Popular interpreters include Nitfol and Frotz. Nitfol makes use of the Glk API , and supports versions 1 through 8 of the Z-machine, including the version 6 graphical Z-machine. Save files are stored in the standard Quetzal save format. Binary files are available for several different operating systems , including
6664-706: The Macintosh File System (MFS), a flat file system with only one level of folders. This was quickly replaced in 1985 by the Hierarchical File System (HFS), which had a true directory tree. Both file systems are otherwise compatible. An improved file system named HFS Plus ("HFS+" or "Mac OS Extended") was announced in 1997 and implemented in 1998. Files in most file systems used with DOS , Windows , Unix , or other operating systems have only one " fork ". By contrast, MFS and HFS give files two different "forks". The data fork contains
6800-628: The Macintosh Portable . From System 6 forward, the Finder has a unified version number closely matching that of the System, alleviating much of the confusion caused by the often considerable differences between earlier Systems. On May 13, 1991, System 7 was released. It was a major upgrade over System 6, adding a significant user interface overhaul, new applications, stability improvements and many new features. Its introduction coincides with
6936-714: The PlayStation and Sega Saturn consoles was produced by Shōeisha in Japan in 1996, nineteen years after its original release. Unofficial versions of Zork have been created for over forty years for a wide range of systems, such as browsers or smart speakers . Four gamebooks , written by Infocom developer Steve Meretzky and set in the Zork world, were published in 1983–1984: The Forces of Krill (1983), The Malifestro Quest (1983), The Cavern of Doom (1983), and Conquest at Quendor (1984). These books, known collectively as
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#17327905392877072-475: The Softalk review noting that every other game since Adventure had limited the player to two-word phrases, though they also thought players would largely stick with clearer two-word commands. 80 Micro wondered whether Zork could ever be completed because of how much the parser let the player do. Byte concluded that "no single advance in the science of Adventure has been as bold and exciting" as Zork ,
7208-670: The Zork codebase and the Z-machine, each of which sold tens of thousands of copies. By 1984, three years after Infocom began self-publishing Zork I , Infocom had fifty full-time employees, US$ 6 million in annual sales, and twelve other games released. Infocom internally nicknamed its early games in relation to Zork , such as "Zork: the Mystery" ( Deadline , 1982), "Zorks in Space" ( Starcross , 1982), and Zork IV ( Enchanter , 1983). By 1986 this had increased to 26 total titles. Although Wishbringer: The Magick Stone of Dreams (1985)
7344-449: The classic Mac OS , Unix-like systems, DOS , and Windows . Frotz was written in C by Stefan Jokisch in 1995 for DOS. Over time it was ported to other platforms, such as Unix-like systems, RISC OS , and iOS . Sound effects and graphics were supported to varying degrees. By 2002, development stalled and the program was picked up by David Griffith. The code base was split between virtual machine and user interface portions in such
7480-518: The desktop accessories (DAs). The icons of the operating system, which represent folders and application software , were designed by Susan Kare , who later designed the icons for Microsoft Windows 3.0 . Bruce Horn and Steve Capps wrote the Macintosh Finder , as well as a number of Macintosh system utilities. Apple aggressively advertised their new machine. After its release, the company bought all 39 pages of advertisement space in
7616-499: The language used called ZIL , a Lisp -family language similar to MDL , still exists, and an open-source replacement "ZILF" has been written. After Mediagenic moved Infocom to California in 1989, Computer Gaming World stated that "ZIL ... is functionally dead", and reported rumors of a "completely new parser that may never be used". In May 1993, Graham Nelson released the first version of his Inform compiler, which also generates Z-machine story files as its output, even though
7752-564: The " Zork books ", are presented as interactive fiction in the style of the Choose Your Own Adventure series, wherein the player makes periodic choices and turns to a page that corresponds to that choice. Two novels were published based on the original game: The Zork Chronicles by George Alec Effinger (1990) and The Lost City of Zork by Robin Wayne Bailey (1991). In 1996 Threshold Entertainment acquired
7888-418: The " Blorb " resource format used by Infocom, and a " Quetzal " savefile format. In 2006, Nelson expanded Z-machine to the 32-bit Glulx format for Inform 7. The Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation , founded 2016, manages all these standards. The ZIL is based on MDL from MIT. Here is the definition of Zork I's brass lantern: A more complex example involving combat, along with its MDL Zork equivalent,
8024-510: The "Alice in Wonderland" section and a system for fighting enemies. Around this time, community member Ted Hess at DEC decoded the protections the group had made for the source code , and another DEC employee, Bob Supnik, created a port of the game to Fortran. This port, released in March 1978, opened the game to a wider set of players without access to a PDP-10 mainframe. At the time,
8160-413: The "System Folder", a set of files that were loaded from disk. The name Macintosh System Software came into use in 1987 with System 5. Apple rebranded the system as Mac OS in 1996, starting officially with version 7.6, due in part to its Macintosh clone program . That program ended after the release of Mac OS 8 in 1997. The last major release of the system was Mac OS 9 in 1999. Initial versions of
8296-473: The 1984 November/December edition of Newsweek magazine. The Macintosh quickly outsold its more sophisticated but much more expensive predecessor, the Lisa . Apple quickly developed MacWorks , a product that allowed the Lisa to emulate Macintosh system software through System 3, by which time it had been discontinued as the rebranded Macintosh XL . Many of the Lisa's operating system advances would not appear in
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#17327905392878432-494: The Inform source language is quite different from ZIL. Inform has become popular in the interactive fiction community. A large proportion of interactive fiction is in the form of Z-machine story files. Demand for the ability to create larger game files led Nelson to specify versions 7 and 8 of the Z-machine, though version 7 is rarely used. Because of the way addresses are handled, a version 3 story file can be up to 128K in length,
8568-497: The MIT computer center. Blank and Joel Berez created a way to run a smaller portion of Zork on several brands of microcomputer , letting them commercialize the game as Infocom's first products. The first episode was published by Personal Software in 1980, after which Infocom purchased back the rights and self-published all three episodes beginning in late 1981. Zork was a massive success for Infocom, with sales increasing for years as
8704-580: The Mac ROM is significantly larger (64 kB) and holds key OS code. Much of the original Mac ROM code was written by Andy Hertzfeld , a member of the original Macintosh team. He was able to conserve precious ROM space by writing routines in assembly language code optimized with "hacks", or clever programming tricks. In addition to the ROM, he also coded the kernel , the Macintosh Toolbox , and some of
8840-400: The Macintosh operating system until System 7 or later. Early versions of Mac OS are compatible only with Motorola 68000 -family Macintoshes. As Apple introduced computers with PowerPC hardware, the OS was ported to support this architecture. Mac OS 8.1 is the last version that could run on a 68k processor (the 68040 ). In systems prior to PowerPC G3 -based systems, significant parts of
8976-524: The System Folder. System 7 also introduced the following: AppleScript , a scripting language for automating tasks; 32-bit QuickDraw , supporting so-called "true color" imaging, previously available as a system extension; and TrueType , an outline font standard. The Trash, under System 6 and earlier, empties itself automatically when shutting down the computer—or, if MultiFinder is not running, when launching an application. System 7 reimplements
9112-620: The System Software ran one application at a time. With the Macintosh 512K , a system extension called the Switcher was developed to use this additional memory to allow multiple programs to remain loaded. The software of each loaded program used the memory exclusively; only when activated by the Switcher did the program appear, even the Finder's desktop. With the Switcher, the now familiar Clipboard feature allowed copy and paste between
9248-480: The System file, and the Finder , an application used for file management that also displays the Desktop . The two files are contained in a folder directory labeled "System Folder", which contains other resource files, like a printer driver , needed to interact with the System. Version numbers of the operating system are based on the version numbers of these two files. These releases can only run one application at
9384-624: The TRS-80 and Apple II. Sales ballooned as Infocom began self-publishing the trilogy and the personal computer market expanded. Zork I had sold 38,000 copies by the end of 1982, nearly 100,000 in 1983, and around 150,000 copies in 1984. Its success outpaced Infocom's later games; Inc. reported in 1983 that Zork I , only one of Infocom's fifteen released titles, composed twenty percent of their annual sales. Zork I sales declined beginning in 1985. The second and third parts of Zork also sold well, though not as highly as
9520-678: The TRS-80 in December 1980. Since Personal Software declined to publish the 1979 PDP-11 version of the game, Infocom sold some copies earlier in the year after announcing it to PDP-11 user groups. Lebling later recalled that about twenty floppy disk copies were sold directly with Anderson's typewritten manual. By the end of 1980, an Apple II version of Zork I was completed and sold through Personal Software. Infocom began receiving requests for hints and maps as predicted, and Berez began handling map and poster orders while Dornbrook wrote customized hints for players; in September 1981 he founded
9656-522: The Trash as a special hidden folder, allowing files to remain in it across reboots until the user deliberately chose the "Empty Trash" command. System 7.1 is mainly a bugfix release, with a few minor features added. One of the major new features of System 7.1 was moving fonts out of the System file into the Fonts folder in the System Folder. Previously a resource-copying utility such as ResEdit or Font D/A Mover
9792-521: The Zork Users Group as a separate company to handle all mail order sales and hint requests. Infocom eventually produced hint booklets with progressive answers to questions written in invisible ink , branded as InvisiClues . Meanwhile, Lebling worked on converting the second half of Zork into Zork II , but in the process thought up several new puzzles for the game. Although as late as December 1980 he told Byte that it would be
9928-413: The actual System file. This leads to extra files inside the system folder (one per new model supported). System 7.5 introduces a large number of new features, many of which are based on shareware applications that Apple bought and included into the new system. On the newer PowerPC machines, System 7.5 may have stability problems partly due to a new memory manager (which can be turned off), and issues with
10064-408: The background. Users can also choose not to use MultiFinder, thereby using a single application at a time. In 1990 InfoWorld tested four multitasking options for PC and Mac, viewing MultiFinder positively overall, but noting that its presence halved the speed of file transfer and printing compared to the single-tasking System 6 without MultiFinder. System Software 6 (also referred to as "System 6")
10200-523: The bank and Royal Zork Puzzle Museum sections, along with some puzzles and ideas suggested by players. The last puzzle was added in February 1979, though the team continued to release bug fix updates until the final update in January 1981. Anderson attributes this to the team running out of ideas and time, and having run out of space in the one megabyte of memory allocated for the game. Very little of
10336-599: The best in the trilogy. PC World said it was "just as exciting and puzzling as Zork I and II ", though its puzzles could be frustrating. K-Power concluded that Zork III was "the most intelligent text game for a microcomputer that we've ever seen". Commodore Magazine , in June 1983, described the combined trilogy as the most popular adventure game, as well as the best. The Addison-Wesley Book of Atari Software 1984 gave all three parts of Zork an overall A+ rating. It called Zork I "the definitive adventure game", adding that Zork II "has
10472-442: The clone-licensing program after returning to Apple in 1997. Support for Macintosh clones was first exhibited in System 7.5.1, which was the first version to include the "Mac OS" logo (a variation on the original Happy Mac startup icon), and Mac OS 7.6 was the first to be named "Mac OS" instead of "System". These changes were made to disassociate the operating system from Apple's own Macintosh models. The Macintosh originally used
10608-463: The creation of the MUD genre, and through it the more recent massively multiplayer online role-playing game genre. The game's natural language parser has been noted as having a strong personality, and it was one of the first games to have one. It has been cited as starting a strong trend in writing for adventure games having "metafictional humor, and tendency towards self-parody". Decades later Zork
10744-443: The dark; while play-testing, Lebling noticed that his character fell into a pit while in the attic of the house. Lebling contends that Adventure was one of Zork ' s only influences, as there were few other games to emulate at the time. Although the game's combat is based on Dungeons & Dragons , Lebling said the other developers had never played it. He also thought of the parser and associated text responses as taking on
10880-581: The disks are named System Tools, users and the press commonly referred to this version as "System Tools 5.0". The primary new feature of System 5 is MultiFinder , an extension that lets the system run several programs at once. The system uses a cooperative multitasking model, meaning that time is given to the background applications only when the foreground application yields control. A change in system functions that applications were already calling to handle events make many existing applications share time automatically, as well as being allowed to perform tasks in
11016-496: The end of 1981. Zork III followed in the fall of 1982. Infocom developed interpreters for the Commodore 64 , Atari 8-bit computers , CP/M systems, and IBM PC compatibles , and released the episodes of Zork for them as well in 1982. Following its 1980 release, Zork I became a bestseller from 1982 through 1985, with 380,000 copies sold by 1986. In its first nine months Personal Software sold 7,500 copies for
11152-401: The end of 1987, Apple introduced a package titled "Apple Macintosh System Software Update 5.0". For the first time, the Macintosh operating system was offered as a distinct retail product that included four 800K disks and three manuals, at a cost of US$ 49. The software itself was still freely available through user groups and bulletin board services. While the product box presented this update to
11288-582: The entire series as a whole in 1999. In 2016 PC Gamer ranked Zork as one of the fifty most important video games ever made for establishing Infocom as a studio and defining an entire generation of adventure games. In 2007 Zork was listed among the ten " game canon " video games selected for preservation by the Library of Congress . The grue has been used as a homage to classic, early computer gaming, referenced in games such as NetHack , World of Warcraft , and Alan Wake . A reference to grues
11424-423: The episodes were very positive, with several reviewers calling Zork the best adventure game to date. Critics regard it as one of the greatest video games . Later historians have noted the game as foundational to the adventure game genre, as well as influencing the MUD and massively multiplayer online role-playing game genres. In 2007, Zork was included in the game canon by the Library of Congress as one of
11560-713: The final hallway. After the player solves the final puzzles, the Dungeon Master appears and transforms the player to look like himself, signifying the player's succession to his position. Tim Anderson , Marc Blank , Bruce Daniels , and Dave Lebling began developing Zork in May 1977. The four were members of the Dynamic Modelling Group, a computer science research division at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Laboratory for Computer Science—Anderson, Blank, and Daniels as students and Lebling as
11696-455: The first section under the title Zork: The Great Underground Empire – Part I . Mike Dornbrook, who had never played the game, tested it as an audience surrogate. He felt that the game would be wildly successful and develop a cult following, and urged Infocom to produce tie-in products like maps, hints, and shirts. The rest of the company was not convinced enough to start producing any such add-ons, but they did add an object in
11832-509: The first: more than 170,000 Zork II and 130,000 Zork III copies sold by 1986. Overall sales of the first three episodes reached over 760,000 copies by early 1989. Combined, they sold more than 250,000 copies by 1984, and more than 680,000 copies through 1986, including the 1986 Zork Trilogy compilation release. Between 1982 and 1986, the Zork trilogy composed more than one-third of Infocom's two million total game sales. Activision purchased Infocom in 1986 and reported that
11968-479: The full 32-bits of a pointer as an address—prior systems used the upper 8 bits as flags . This change is known as being "32-bit clean". While System 7 itself is 32-bit clean, many existing machines and thousands of applications were not, so it was some time before the process was completed. To ease the transition, the "Memory" control panel contains a switch to disable this feature, allowing for compatibility with older applications. Another notable System 7 feature
12104-435: The game that gave an address for players to mail in for maps and hints in case it proved popular. The game now complete, the company began looking for a professional publisher with store and distributor connections. They felt this was preferable to self-publishing . Berez approached Microsoft , who declined based on the game competing with Microsoft Adventure (1979), their version of Adventure . Microsoft CEO Bill Gates
12240-434: The game was challenging, enjoyable, and funny. A reviewer for Softalk said it broke away from both the first episode and Adventure to be "fresh and interesting". Some of the puzzles in Zork II were later considered "infamously difficult", and in a hint book, Infocom apologized for one puzzle's difficulty and reliance on baseball knowledge. Reviews in Softalk and Creative Computing named Zork III as
12376-483: The game was planned ahead of time, nor were aspects of the game specific to one developer; instead, whenever one of the developers had an idea they liked, that developer would add it to the game, developing the concept and writing the text to go with it. According to Lebling, Blank ended up focusing mostly on the parser, Anderson on the game code, Blank and Daniels on new puzzles, and Lebling on descriptions of locations. Anderson says that Blank wrote "40 or 50" iterations of
12512-435: The game world and solve puzzles in almost any order, although some passageways require problem-solving to get through, and some puzzles require the player to possess something gained from solving a different puzzle. In Zork III , unlike in prior episodes, there is a timed component that directly affects the outcome. An earthquake will occur after about 130 moves, opening one passageway and closing another. In each episode,
12648-449: The game's layout to improve its flow and disconnecting locations now in separate episodes. By the end of 1979 Berez had been elected the company's president. The core game was complete, but it had been run only on DECSYSTEM-20 and PDP-11 mainframe computers. Infocom purchased a TRS-80 personal computer early in 1980, which could run the game after Blank and Scott Cutler created an interpreter program. Infocom began preparing to release
12784-508: The game. Following user requests, they also added the ability for the game to run on PDP-10 computers running different operating systems— TENEX and TOPS-20 —which were much more popular than the Incompatible Timesharing System operating system the MIT computer used. These users then set up a mailing list to distribute updates to the game. The developers returned to creating new content in the fall of 1977, adding
12920-666: The genre". Game historian Matt Barton contended that "to say that Zork is an influential adventure game is like saying the Iliad is an influential poem". Rather than simply influencing games, Barton said it instead showed that the computer could simulate a rich virtual world, and helped lay the foundations of video game concepts around exploring, collecting objects, and overcoming problems. Nick Montfort , in his book on interactive fiction Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction (2003), suggested that Zork ' s legacy and influence lay not in its parser or writing, but in
13056-458: The growing market of third-party Macintosh clone manufacturers. Mac OS 7.6 required 32-bit-clean ROMs, and so it dropped support for every Mac with a 68000 processor, as well as the Mac II , Mac IIx , Mac IIcx , and Mac SE/30 . Mac OS 8 was released on July 26, 1997, the same month Steve Jobs became the de facto CEO of Apple. It was mainly released to keep the Mac OS moving forward during
13192-475: The handling of errors in the PowerPC code (all PowerPC exceptions map to Type 11). These issues do not affect 68k-architecture machines. System 7.5 is contemporary with Apple's failed Copland effort as well as the release of Windows 95 . Stability improved in PowerPC-based Macs with Mac OS 7.6, which dropped the "System" moniker as a more trademarkable name was needed in order to license the OS to
13328-451: The introduction of the new OS to the public, to help ease the transition. These included new APIs for the file system and the bundling of the Carbon library that apps could link against instead of the traditional API libraries—apps that were adapted to do this could be run natively on Mac OS X as well. Other changes were made beginning with the Mac OS 9.1 update to allow it to be launched in
13464-424: The lamp and sword in the case"). The command must fit the location's context (e.g., "get lamp" works only if a lamp is present). The program acts as a narrator, describing to the player their location and the results of certain actions. If the game does not understand the player's commands, it asks for the player to retype their actions. The program's replies are typically in a sarcastic, conversational tone, much as
13600-607: The latter clashed with the widespread use of .zip for PKZIP-compatible archive files starting in the 1990s, after Activision closed Infocom. Infocom produced six versions of the Z-machine. Files using versions 1 and 2 are very rare. Only two version 1 files are known to have been released by Infocom and only two of version 2. Version 3 covers the majority of Infocom's released games. Later versions had more capabilities, culminating in some graphic support in version 6. The compiler (called Zilch) that Infocom used to produce its story files has never been released, although documentation of
13736-794: The loaded programs across switches including the desktop. With the introduction of System 5, a cooperative multitasking extension called MultiFinder was added, which allowed content in windows of each program to remain in a layered view over the desktop, and was later integrated into System 7 as part of the operating system along with support for virtual memory . By the mid-1990s, however, contemporary operating systems such as Windows NT , OS/2 , NeXTSTEP , BSD , and Linux had all brought pre-emptive multitasking , protected memory , access controls , and multi-user capabilities to desktop computers. The Macintosh's limited memory management and susceptibility to conflicts among extensions that provide additional functionality, such as networking or support for
13872-412: The market for personal computers expanded. The first episode sold more than 38,000 copies in 1982, and around 150,000 copies in 1984. Collectively, the three episodes sold more than 680,000 copies through 1986, comprising more than one-third of Infocom's sales in this period. Infocom was purchased by Activision in 1986, leading to new Zork games beginning in 1987, as well as a series of books. Reviews of
14008-506: The most famous piece of interactive fiction. The original game, developed between 1977 and 1979 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), was inspired by Colossal Cave Adventure (1976), the first well-known example of interactive fiction and the first well-known adventure game . The developers wanted to make a similar game that was able to understand more complicated sentences than Adventure 's two-word commands. In 1979, they founded Infocom with several other colleagues at
14144-456: The motherboard, which also ensured that only Apple computers or licensed clones (with the copyright-protected ROMs from Apple) can run Mac OS. Several computer manufacturers over the years made Macintosh clones that were capable of running Mac OS. From 1995 to 1997, Apple licensed Macintosh ROMs to several companies, notably Power Computing , UMAX and Motorola . These machines normally ran various versions of Classic Mac OS. Steve Jobs ended
14280-439: The new Aqua user interface . Mac OS X was renamed "OS X" in 2011 and "macOS" in 2016. Users of the Classic Mac OS generally upgraded to Mac OS X, but it was criticized in its early years as more difficult and less user-friendly than the original Mac OS, for the lack of certain features that had not yet been reimplemented in the new OS, for being slower on the same hardware (especially older hardware), and for incompatibilities with
14416-406: The older OS. Because drivers (for printers, scanners, tablets, etc.) written for the older Mac OS were not compatible with Mac OS X, inconsistent program support with the Classic Environment program used to run the older operating system's programs on Mac OS X, and the lack of Mac OS X support for older Apple computers before late 1997; some Macintosh users continued using the older Classic Mac OS for
14552-476: The only system that supported their programming language. While Lebling took a two-week vacation, Anderson, Blank, and Daniels designed an adventure game concept, which Anderson and Blank then developed as an early version of Zork . This prototype contained simple versions of many concepts seen in the final game, including puzzles and locations. According to Anderson, "it took time for people to learn how to write good problems", and Lebling's first, uncomplex parser
14688-415: The operating system as "version 5.0", this number does not appear in the software itself. Three of the four disks (System Tools 1, System Tools 2 and Utilities 1) are all bootable, and the user can boot off whichever floppy contains the tools the user needs. For instance, System Tools 2 is the only disk with printer drivers, and Utilities 1 is the only disk with Disk First Aid and Apple HD SC Setup . Because
14824-453: The parser, and describes Daniels as designing puzzles that were then largely implemented by the others. He credits Blank with vehicles and saving, and Lebling with the robot, grues, and the fighting system. To immerse the player in the game, the developers decided not to describe the player character, removing any accidental descriptions or gendered pronouns . The text responses to the player's commands were frequently opinionated and sarcastic,
14960-410: The player's possessions. The player can fight or evade the thief, and can recover stolen items from the thief's treasure room. Some locations contain antagonists that the player must fight or overcome. Beginning in Zork II the player can learn magic spells to use in puzzles and combat. In dark areas, the player must carry a lantern or other light source to avoid being eaten by a monster called
15096-479: The player. These have several effects, such as "Fluoresce", which causes the player to glow, and "Freeze", which keeps the player stuck in place for a few turns. In Zork III the player character gathers the garb of the Dungeon Master to become his successor. Once the player has all the items, they must feed an elderly man, who reveals himself as the Dungeon Master and shows them the doorway leading to
15232-467: The release of and provided support for the 68040 Macintosh line . The System 7 era saw numerous changes in the Macintosh platform including a proliferation of Macintosh models , the 68k to Power Macintosh transition as well as the rise of Microsoft Windows , increasing use of computer networking and the explosion in the popularity of the Internet . One of the most significant features of System 7
15368-448: The rights to Zork and announced plans to create a Zork movie and live action TV series, though it was never produced. Classic Mac OS Mac OS (originally System Software ; retronym : Classic Mac OS ) is the series of operating systems developed for the Macintosh family of personal computers by Apple Computer, Inc. from 1984 to 2001, starting with System 1 and ending with Mac OS 9 . The Macintosh operating system
15504-539: The role of the Dungeon Master from a Dungeons & Dragons game, trying to lead the player through a story solely by describing it; this had also been the idea behind the parser in Adventure . The developers did not announce their game while it was in development, but a lack of security on the MIT systems meant that anyone who could access the PDP-10 computer over the ARPANET could see what programs were being run. As
15640-512: The ruler Lord Dimwit Flathead renamed the empire to the Great Underground Empire and spent his reign building massive, largely pointless projects such as an underground dam and the royal museum. A century later, the empire's overspending caused it to collapse, and all the residents left. The abandoned empire is the setting of the three episodes of Zork . Zork I begins with the unnamed player standing in an open field west of
15776-524: The same outstanding command flexibility, wry humor, and word recognition of Zork ", and concluded that Zork III was "perhaps the most entertaining of the three" and "a highwater mark for subtlety and logic". InfoWorld 's Essential Guide to Atari Computers recommended the trilogy as among the best adventure games for the Atari 8-bit computer. Zork has been described as "by far the most famous piece of [interactive fiction]" and "the father figure of
15912-425: The same sort of information as a file in other file systems, such as the text of a document or the bitmaps of an image file. The resource fork contains other structured data such as menu definitions, graphics, sounds, or code segments that would be incorporated into a program's file format on other systems. An executable file might consist only of resources (including code segments ) with an empty data fork, while
16048-564: The summer and fall of 1979 without pay, as the new company had the funds for only the computers. They ported the game to a new Zork Implementation Language (ZIL), which would then be run on a standardized " Z-machine " software-based computer. For each type of microcomputer they wanted to release Zork or other ZIL-based games on, they could write an interpreter program that could run the Z-Machine instead of rewriting each game. Lebling divided Zork in half to create standalone episodes, modifying
16184-432: The system are stored in physical ROM on the motherboard. The initial purpose of this is to avoid having the OS use up most of the 128KiB RAM of the initial Macintosh—the initial ROMs were 64KiB. This architecture also allows for a completely graphical OS interface at the lowest level without the need for a text-only console or command-line mode: boot time errors, such as finding no functioning disk drives, are communicated to
16320-514: The team had decided to give the game an actual name besides "zork", and chose Dungeon . This name was used for the Fortran version, which was spread through the DEC users group as one of its most popular pieces of software. TSR Hobbies claimed the title violated their trademark for Dungeons & Dragons , and the developers reverted to their original title. Over the course of 1978, the team added
16456-532: The ten most important video games in history. Zork is a text-based adventure game wherein the player explores the ruins of the Great Underground Empire. The player types text commands for their character to traverse locations, solve puzzles, and collect treasure. The game has hundreds of locations, each with a name and description, and the player's commands interact with the objects, obstacles, and creatures within them. Commands can be one or two words (e.g., "get lamp" or "north") or more complex phrases (e.g., "put
16592-481: The three Zork games and trilogy compilation sold another 80,000 copies by early 1989. The episodes of Zork were highly praised in contemporaneous reviews. Byte and 80 Micro praised their writing, which the Byte reviewer described as "entertaining, eloquent, witty, and precise". Reviewers for Softalk and The Space Gamer enjoyed how the parser let them input more complex sentences than did earlier games,
16728-677: The time, there was a large grassroots movement among Mac users to upgrade and "help save Apple". Even some pirate groups refused to redistribute the OS. Mac OS 8.1 introduced an updated version of the Hierarchical File System named HFS+ , which fixed many of the limitations of the earlier system and continued to be used in macOS up until macOS High Sierra , when it was replaced with the Apple File System . There are some other interface changes such as separating network features from printing, and some improvements to application switching. However, in underlying technical respects, Mac OS 8
16864-476: The treasures are needed to reach the conclusion of the game. Zork does not follow a linear storyline . Most of the setting is established through the game's written descriptions of items and locations, as well as manuals in later game releases. Long before the time the game is set in, the Quendor empire, having conquered everywhere above ground, built a massive cave complex to expand. Two hundred years later,
17000-481: The user graphically, usually with an icon or the distinctive Chicago bitmap font and a Chime of Death or a series of beeps. This is in contrast to MS-DOS and CP/M computers of the time, which display such messages in a mono-spaced font on a black background, and require the use of the keyboard rather than a mouse, for input. To provide such niceties at a low level, early Mac OS depends on core system software in ROM on
17136-406: The user interface design elements of the Classic Mac OS, and there was some overlap of application frameworks for compatibility, but the two operating systems otherwise have completely different origins and architectures. The final updates to Mac OS 9 released in 2001 provided interoperability with Mac OS X. The name "Classic" that now signifies the historical Mac OS as a whole is a reference to
17272-531: The way it modeled the game world as a complex, dynamic space that the player moved through. Janet Murray , in Hamlet on the Holodeck (1997), considered this a result of the way the game was programmed compared to other games of the time, with each area, item, and actor modeled as their own object that could act and be acted upon. Historians have argued that Zork , along with Colossal Cave Adventure , influenced
17408-399: Was a fan of Zork , but by the time he heard of the proposal, Infocom was in negotiations with another publisher, Personal Software , one of the first professional software publishing companies. Personal Software agreed to publish the game in June 1980, sending the company an advance payment . Zork: The Great Underground Empire , also known as Zork I or just Zork , was published for
17544-532: Was also created for the control panels . In System 7.5, Apple includes the Extensions Manager , a previously third-party program which simplified the process of enabling and disabling extensions. The Apple menu, home only to desk accessories in System 6, was made more general-purpose: the user could now make often-used folders and applications—or anything else they desired—appear in the menu by placing aliases to them in an "Apple Menu Items" subfolder of
17680-502: Was heavily involved with Maze (1973), a multiplayer first-person shooter and the first 3D first-person game ever made. Lebling first created a natural language input system, or parser, that could process typed two-word instructions. Anderson and Blank built a small prototype text game to use it. Zork 's prototype was built for the Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) PDP-10 mainframe computer ,
17816-571: Was included; files could now be copied in the background. The GUI was changed in appearance to a new shaded greyscale look named Platinum , and the ability to change the appearance themes (also known as skins ) was added with a new control panel (though Platinum was the only one shipped). This capability was provided by a new "appearance" API layer within the OS, one of the few significant changes. Apple sold 1.2 million copies of Mac OS 8 in its first two weeks of availability and 3 million within six months. In light of Apple's financial difficulties at
17952-652: Was not advertising Zork I very strongly, and did not seem excited about Infocom's plans for Zork III and other planned text adventure games such as Deadline and Starcross . Personal Software soon stopped publishing entertainment software altogether and rebranded as VisiCorp in 1982 to align with its VisiCalc spreadsheet software. Rather than find another publisher, Infocom decided to self-publish its games and began renting office space and contracting with production facilities. It bought out Personal Software's stock of Apple II Zork I copies and began publishing Zork I and II directly by
18088-452: Was only "almost as smart as Adventure ' s". The game was unnamed, but the group had a habit of naming their programs "zork" until they were completed, a term in the MIT community for an in-development program. The group, referring to themselves as the "implementers", continued working on the game after Lebling returned, adding features and iterating on the parser through June 1977. Grues were added to replace pits that would kill players in
18224-491: Was ostensibly set in the same world as Zork , the company had not made any more official Zork games, releasing only a Zork Trilogy compilation of all three episodes. In 1985 Infocom diversified into professional software by creating a relational database product called Cornerstone . Poor sales led to financial difficulties and the company was sold to Activision in 1986. Infocom then created two more Zork games: Beyond Zork: The Coconut of Quendor (1987), which added
18360-590: Was partially based on the Lisa OS , which Apple previously released for the Lisa computer in 1983. As part of an agreement allowing Xerox to buy shares in Apple at a favorable price, it also used concepts from the Xerox PARC Alto computer, which former Apple CEO Steve Jobs and other Lisa team members had previewed. This operating system consisted of the Macintosh Toolbox ROM and
18496-479: Was required for installing fonts. System 7.1 is not only the first Macintosh operating system to cost money (all previous versions were free or sold at the cost of the floppies), but also received a "Pro" sibling (version 7.1.1) with extra features. System 7.1.2 was the first version to support PowerPC-based Macs. System 7.1 also introduces the System Enablers as a method to support new models without updating
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