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From: dmw3@ur-tut.UUCP (David M Walsh Jr.)
Newsgroups: rec.games.misc,comp.sys.apple
Subject: Re: zork decoding
Message-ID: <400@ur-tut.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 3-Nov-87 17:29:52 EST
Article-I.D.: ur-tut.400
Posted: Tue Nov  3 17:29:52 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 8-Nov-87 15:37:18 EST
References: <2804@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu>
Reply-To: dmw3@tut.cc.rochester.edu.UUCP (David M Walsh Jr.)
Organization: Univ. of Rochester Computing Center
Lines: 15
Keywords: zork,infocom
Xref: mnetor rec.games.misc:1096 comp.sys.apple:3206


   Well I heard a few years back that Infocom used a 3/2 encoding scheme.
They put 3 characters into 2 bytes by only using 5 bits per character.
This leaves 1 extra bit for God knows what.

  Unfortunately I have no idea what they included in their table of 32
characters (2^5=32), so I can't help in getting correct decoding, but
this should help any hackers out there to finish the job.  I would
assume that they do use the "left-over" bit because they do use more than
32 characters (I think.)  The alphabet is 26, the space key makes 27,
adding punctuation can take it over 32...

  Oh well, hope this helps...

  Dave Walsh - an old Apple ][+ hacker