Running Zork Games on XP, Vista, Linux, & Mac OS X
Back in 2002, I wrote a guide for getting the game Zork Grand Inquisitor running on Windows XP. The game didn’t work well without the guide because it was originally designed for Windows 98. I’ve been a fan of the Zork series for almost 10 years now. After receiving a message from another Zork fan in regards to that guide I wrote, I decided that it was time to look into the games again. With a few changes, the more modern games in the series are supported under Windows XP and possibly Vista. That’s when I had an idea. With Wine, DOSBox and Frotz, it should be possible to run any Zork game on Linux and Mac OS X too. With that, it becomes feasible to run any game in the Zork series on any major operating system. That’s a big task. I began a project to work on making that idea a reality. I’m not alone though. I’m receiving some help and hosting from DAT, the maintainer of the only Zork website still active, The Zork Library.
The guides are currently at http://www.kevinbecker.net/zorkguides and will soon be hosted on http://www.thezorklibrary.com as well. The project is a work in progress and needs help on the configurations I can’t test myself, mainly Mac OS X and Vista. Help with writing the guides and testing them, as well as comments and questions would be greatly appreciated!
Aaron Said,
July 2, 2008 @ 5:00 pm Quote
I can confirm that Frotz works on Mac OS. It’s directly available through the fink package manager, or can be downloaded and compiled.
Kevin Said,
July 31, 2008 @ 9:13 pm Quote
Thanks for the info. I don’t have a Mac, so I can’t test it myself, but I’ll make a note of it on the guide index page soon. Feel free to write a guide yourself, even just modifying the one for frotz that I provide if you like.
Tickle Said,
August 17, 2008 @ 3:37 pm Quote
Your XP guide for Zork: GI works perfectly for Vista as well - I really can’t thank you enough, I played this game as a child and getting it working on my current machine is a dream come true.
marisa Said,
August 23, 2008 @ 12:19 pm Quote
thank you so much for doing this, but i am still having trouble saving the changes on the ZIX file on step c of the manual method.
i un-ticked the read only box, and all my settings allow it, so why cant i change it?
and i dont really understand how the automatic way works!
is there any way i can make it work?
Tom Said,
August 26, 2008 @ 7:14 am Quote
The XP way doesn’t quite work for me. It runs the program without the possibility of starting a new game, and if i do anything it shuts down.
Romkind Said,
September 13, 2008 @ 3:34 am Quote
I got a problem my Zork Nemesis CDs are very old..and i cant find the nem_man.exe on my CD1 plz contact me
Icq 296831517
or e-mail