[simmons]

I was reading an article about the Z-Machine recently [1], and I was quite surprised that in addition to being a virtual machine, it also implemented virtual memory! Thus, pages could be swapped in and out of disk as needed. (Since CPUs like the 6502 didn't have a hardware MMU, I guess this was an explicit software step -- i.e. a called function that would check if the page was loaded, and if not, arrange for its load.)

With a virtual machine, virtual memory, and (for the time) a great natural language parser, it shows that the Infocom folks learned their craft in world of academia, high-end computer hardware, and ideas, instead of the more amateur (at the time) world of microcomputer enthusiasts.

[1] https://www.filfre.net/2012/01/zil-and-the-z-machine/

[bluGill]

While cool in a way, it was also annoying that infocom games in the day took several seconds, then started the disk to load whatever the next response was.

The limited parsers of the competition responded almost instantly to input. The limited parsers were enough for everything needed, most everyone I knew just used the two word sentences even though more complex ones would work.

[nineteen999]

> then started the disk to load whatever the next response was.

In addition on some systems with smaller disks (eg. C64) needed the story file to be split up over two disks, because the story file and interpreter wouldn't both fit on one disk. So you were switching the floppy disk at various intervals as well. With the C1541 being no speed demon to begin with it was not fun. I remember being much happier playing it on CP/M and DOS machines later.