Editing Z-machine (section)

===Nomenclature and conventions===
The "Z" of Z-machine stands for ''[[Zork]]'', Infocom's first adventure game. Infocom used file extensions of .dat (Data) and .zip (ZIP = Z-machine Interpreter Program), but the latter clashed with the widespread use of .zip for [[ZIP file format|PKZIP-compatible archive files]] starting in the 1990s, after [[Activision]] had closed Infocom.

Infocom produced six versions of the Z-machine. Files using versions 1 and 2 are very rare. Only two version 1 files are known to have been released by Infocom and only two of version 2. Version 3 covers the majority of Infocom's released games. Later versions had more capabilities, culminating in some graphic support in version 6.

The modern convention for Z-code files usually have names ending in .z1, .z2, .z3, .z4, .z5, .z6, .z7, or .z8, where the number is the version number of the Z-machine on which the file is intended to be run, as given by the first [[byte]] of the story file.<ref name="version">{{cite web|title=The Z-Machine Standards Document|url=https://inform-fiction.org/zmachine/standards/z1point0/appd.html|website=inform-fiction.org|access-date=26 March 2018}}</ref> As previously noted, the Infocom games used the equivalent of .z1 through .z6; .z7 and .z8 were proposed and adopted after Infocom had shut down.