Editing Z-machine (section)

===ZIL and ZIP, ZILCH and ZAP===
To complement the Z-machine, Infocom developed the high-level [[computer language]] Zork Implementation Language (ZIL) by streamlining MDL,<ref name=CrCo-1980>{{cite magazine |url=https://archive.org/details/creativecomputing-1980-07/page/n81/mode/2up |title=How to Fit a Large Program Into a Small Machine or How to fit the Great Underground Empire on your desk-top |first1=Marc S. |last1=Blank |first2=S. W. |last2=Galley |date=July 1980 |magazine=Creative Computing |pages=80–87 |access-date=7 January 2025}}</ref> and the Z-language Interpreter Program (ZIP), which compiles ZIL into Z-machine instructions in a two-stage process; this made text adventure development platform-independent and enabled porting to different systems simply by writing an appropriate Z-machine interpreter.<ref name=Infocom-story/>{{rp|12–13}} ZIP consists of a [[compiler]] (ZILCH, short for ZIL Compiler Hack) and an [[Assembly language#assembler|assembler]] (ZAP, the Z-machine Assembler Program).<ref>{{cite web |url=https://eblong.com/infocom/ |title=The Obsessively Complete INFOCOM Catalog |first=Andrew |last=Plotkin |website=eblong.com |access-date=3 January 2025}}</ref>

ZILCH has never been released, although documentation of ZIL still exists, and an open-source replacement "ZILF"<ref name="ZILF">{{cite web |url=http://zilf.io/|title=ZILF|first=Jesse|last=McGrew|website=zilf.io|access-date=22 November 2020}}</ref> has been written. After [[Mediagenic]] moved Infocom to California in 1989, ''[[Computer Gaming World]]'' stated that "ZIL ... is functionally dead", and reported rumors of a "completely new parser that may never be used".<ref name = "CGW">{{cite magazine |date = September 1989| issue=63 | magazine = [[Computer Gaming World]] | title = Inside the Industry: Infocom's West Coast Move Stirs Controversy | pages = 10 | url=https://archive.org/details/Computer_Gaming_World_Issue_63/page/n9/mode/1up}}</ref>