Editing Z-machine (section)

===Graham Nelson and ''Inform''===
{{main|Inform}}
In May 1993, [[Graham Nelson]] released the first version of his ''[[Inform]]'' compiler, which also generates Z-machine story files as its output, even though the Inform source language is quite different from ZIL.

Inform has become popular in the [[interactive fiction]] community. A large proportion of interactive fiction is in the form of Z-machine story files. Demand for the ability to create larger game files led Nelson to specify versions 7 and 
8 of the Z-machine, though version 7 is rarely used. Because of the way addresses are handled, a version 3 story file can be up to 128K in length, a version 5 story can be up to 256K in length, and a version 8 story can be up to 512k in length. Though these sizes may seem small by today's computing standards, for text-only adventures, these are large enough for elaborate games.

During the 1990s, Graham Nelson drew up a Z-Machine Standard based on detailed studies of the existing Infocom files. The standard also includes extensions used by his newer versions, as well as links to the "[[Blorb]]" resource format used by Infocom, and a "[[Quetzal file format|Quetzal]]" savefile format.<ref name="standard">{{cite web|title=Inform - ZMachine - Standards|url=https://inform-fiction.org/zmachine/standards/index.html|website=inform-fiction.org|access-date=26 March 2018}}</ref> In 2006, Nelson expanded Z-machine to the 32-bit [[Glulx]] format for Inform 7. The [[Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation]], founded 2016, manages all these standards.<ref>{{cite web |title=Glk, Glulx, and Blorb Specifications |url=https://github.com/iftechfoundation/ifarchive-if-specs |publisher=Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation |date=16 November 2022}}</ref>