Date   : Tue, 24 Feb 1987 15:20:47 GMT
From   : Andrew Klossner <andrew@hammer.TEK.COM>
Subject: Hitchhiker's Guide for CP/M-80

Several Infocom games, including "Hitchhiker's Guide", are available
for CP/M-80 machines, but Infocom doesn't tell you this.

Many of us have stared longingly at Infocom's matrix of games vs
machines and despaired at all the blank boxes in the CP/M-80 line.
Many of those blanks correspond to filled boxes in the "Kaypro II"
line, meaning that those games are available for the Kaypro II
computer.  The Kaypro II is a Z80 based machine running CP/M-80.  I
wrote to Infocom asking whether I could run Kaypro II games on my CP/M
system, but they ignored me.  So I took a chance and bought the Kaypro
II version of "Hitchhiker's Guide."

Good news -- the Kaypro II package differs from a standard CP/M-80
package only in that the software (the .COM and .DAT files) are
distributed on a Kaypro 5.25" floppy, and the .COM file is
preconfigured for the Kaypro II environment; no configuration files are
supplied.  Neither the floppy disk nor the software are copy protected,
and an old configuration file from, e.g., the CP/M distribution of
"Zork I" will still work on the .COM file.  The only problem, then, is
transferring files from the Kaypro II disk to an eight inch disk, but
readers of these newsgroups should have little trouble finding
resources to accomplish this.  [Don't ask me for help, I relied heavily
on the kindness of friends.]

This information comes at an opportune time.  Infocom is discontinuing
many of their lines of machine support, including the Kaypro II, and is
blowing away these games for about $17, a much lower price than the
standard $40.  This sale ends on March 31, after which the software may
not be available at all.

I speculate that Infocom stopped distributing their games in CP/M-80
format because they wanted to stop supporting the eight inch disk and
the larger packaging that such disks necessitate.

Warning: I haven't verified that the Kaypro II software works on a
CP/M-80 system that doesn't use a Z80 processor.  I have no reason to
suspect it, but wouldn't be surprised if a Z80 is required.

  -=- Andrew Klossner   (decvax!tektronix!tekecs!andrew)       [UUCP]
                        (tekecs!andrew.tektronix@csnet-relay)  [ARPA]