Volume 24, Issue 2 (June 2019) of Juiced.GS, the longest-running Apple II publication in print, has now shipped.

This issue features a look at PLATO, a 1960s mainframe program being used to create a modern online retrocomputing community; a comparison of BASIC alternatives to Applesoft; reflections on an interview with Steve Meretzky of Infocom fame; a tutorial for converting MP3s to Apple IIGS rSound format; and much, much more!

This is Juiced.GS‘s second quarterly issue of 2019, its twenty-fourth year in print. Subscriptions for 2019 are available for $20 each for United States customers, $25 for readers in Canada and Mexico, and $28 for international customers.

The source code for 45 Infocom text adventures is now available in its native ZIL (Zork Implementation Language) from GitHub.

I've uploaded the entirety of source code of all Infocom text adventures/interactive fiction to Github. https://t.co/p0K8MRKoTN If you don't understand ZIL, and you probably don't, read this instruction manual. https://t.co/H8nl1fxWcv

— Jason Scott (@textfiles) April 16, 2019

According to the code repository’s readme file, “This collection is meant for education, discussion, and historical work, allowing researchers and students to study how code was made for these interactive fiction games and how the system dealt with input and processing. It is not considered to be under an open license.” But notes Gamasutra, “… Activision, which purchased Infocom in 1986, still owns the company IP, meaning it could eventually clamp down and halt Scott’s preservation efforts.”

To commemorate the release of this code, GitHub will host the live event “Game On I: The Great Quest for Imagination“, on the afternoon of Friday, April 26, 2019, 3–6:30 PM PDT (UTC-7) at its headquarters at 88 Colin P Kelly Jr St, San Francisco, California, USA. Steve Meretzky, the sole or lead designer on such Infocom games as The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, A Mind Forever Voyaging, Planetfall, and Leather Goddesses of Phobos, will be the guest of honor. The event will be moderated by Kevin Savetz of the Eaten by a Grue podcast. Topics will include Infocom, working with ZIL, putting the source code on GitHub, and the evolution of software and version control. Following the discussion will be a happy hour, during which game stations will be set up all where people can have fun with Infocom titles and multiplayer games. The event is open to the public; free registration is required. It will also be livestreamed online.

For more on the history of Infocom, watch Jason Scott’s Infocom documentary, included as part of Get Lamp.
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Podcast hosts Carrington Vanston of the Retro Computing Roundtable and Kevin Savetz of ANTIC have joined forces to form a new podcast. Eaten by a Grue is a semi-monthly show in which the two co-hosts play and share their experiences with Infocom interactive fiction. The first two text adventure games they’ve played are Zork I: The Great Underground Empire and Ballyhoo, both of which were originally available for the Apple II and which can now be found in the Lost Treasures of Infocom, among other ports. Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

This isn’t the first z-machine interpreter for Apple’s mobile operating system, but Activision’s just-released “Lost Treasures of Infocom” for iOS is the first official way to play many of Infocom’s classic text adventures on your iPhone or iPad.  The app is available for free from the App Store and comes with Zork I: The Great Underground Empire included at no extra charge.  To play the other 26 titles Activision is including, you’ll have to fork over $2.99 for each additional five-game theme collection (or get them all for $9.99), as in-app purchases, so “free” in this case is perhaps somewhat dubious.

“LTOI” also comes with InvisiClues and maps (each a $0.99 in-app purchase), game manuals, photos of the original game packaging and in-box “feelies” for each title; and promises, “new interface enhancements” which presumably make playing text adventures easier in a touchscreen environment.

If you’re considering checking it out, keep in mind this isn’t the complete back-catalog of Infocom titles.  Missing are Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Bureaucracy, Shogun, Nord and Bert, Beyond Zork, Zork Zero, Sherlock: Riddle of the Crown Jewels, Arthur, and Journey.

Wired is reporting that Dave Lebling and Mark Blank, two of the co-creators of Zork and co-founders of Infocom, will be honored with the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences’ Pioneer Award at the DICE Summit in February.  Read the whole announcement here and then check out an interview conducted with Lebling by Wired writer Chris Kohler.  In an interesting twist, the interview is presented as a playable text adventure using Playfic, an online community that lets you write, remix, share, and play interactive text-based games with the world.

Jason Scott, creator of BBS: The Documentary, continues his work on his next project: a documentary of text adventures entitled Get Lamp. Media distribution has changed much in the four years since Scott’s last release, and he’s looking for his audience’s perspective on how they want this next documentary delivered.

To that end, he has created an informal survey on his blog, asking potential viewers how they’d like to get their hands on Get Lamp. Do you want a DVD or a digital download? Are the extras as important to you as the film? Help shape the course of this project with just a moment of your time.

Update: This survey was completed on September 20th. Thank you to all who participated.