Just joined GOG - not a pc gamer as only one pc with XP on , all others run Linux. However did find this site from a mention on a torrent site. At these prices it makes sense to buy these older games.
However , I digress , back on topic...

Really good to see the Zork series here - now how about the other Infocom classics. I am currently playing these either on an old Apple IIe computer or one of my old Amigas however I would love to be able to play these on a pc so would be happy to buy them either individually or as packs like the Zork collection.
Just finishing some of the free downloads , then will try them out. If all OK will buy the Zork set and go from there.

Great idea for GOG and prices are unbeatable.

Many of the games on GOG, including the Zork ones, use the DOSBox emulator.
The GOG installers are for windows but after you extract the files you can run them on any platform that DOSBox supports, including Linux.

You could also run the infocom games using one of them many Z-machine interpreters

These work fine using either Gargoyle, nfrotz, frotz, or fizmo. I'm _fairly_ sure Andrew Plotkin's javascript items will work with it as well, if you wanted to go that way. (Google for his items, it's quite amazing what he's doing with inform and javascript.)

Simply unpack the executables (I've done this with wine using a very, very minimal wine setup, or using one of the older knoppix disks that had wine on it - it doens't need to be a modern wine.) The files you need are generally in the DATA directory, but you'll find them.

Also, yes, these work in DOSbox if you want to go and chew up some processor (:

- osX people: same for you.
- Windows people: I think Gargoyle has a Windows port. Yes, it does. So you could try it that way too, rather than using dosbox. (run in a window, etc.)
- MorphOS people: I think frotz compiles. I have to check. (:
- AROS people: same. I'll... check (:
- iphone: yes, it works in that Frotz, but you have to get it there.
- N900 - gargoyle works (:

and apparently, 'open inkpot' has a Gargoyle version, so you could actually play on a book reader that runs open inkpot. I only found that via googling for the Windows Gargoyle version.

OBVIOUSLY this is not 'fully suported' by GoG but basically, it does run when using a z-machine interpreter. That's how I run my copies (:
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Now, that was for THIS collection. The later games - Zork Zero - I'm not sure that is a Z-machine adventure; though Fizmo reports that it has 'support coming.'

Gargoyle can't deal with Beyond Zork - but Fizmo can. I think nfrotz and the frotz series can as well.

Both of those work from DOSbox.

If you want a version to 'port' check out dumbfrotz ... I've gotten it to run on Xenix and 4.3 BSD for the VAX... so.. it's quite portable! :)

You might want to check to be sure it can handle the various 64bit changes that Zarf is doing to Inform - I'm not sure it'll track those, being "dumb" but it should, as I would imagine some of the new interactive fiction that comes out in the coming years will take advantage of that (it lifts a big restriction in the number of objects and locations possible, apparently.)

Nah dumb is good for the old Infocom stuff... although 64bit changes! now that sounds like fun! I may have to dig up a copy of Inform and try to write something!

Zarf's pages are a bit hard to navigate, mainly because he's working on things (and NOT the webpages) but here are some relevant things:

http://eblong.com/zarf/glulx/quixe/index.html

quixe is his javascript interpreter for interactive fiction. It should _also_ run any of these games. In a browser that has javascript. I have not done this yet. I may, one day. That day is not today.

From that page you can find various things like his specifications, and where to get inform7 - unfortunately the inform7 page - right this moment - has gigantic python/django errors.