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Actually it's not a big deal, the source code for Frotz is freely available and I have copies of all of the required data for each game. My only concern is that the scratch 'n' sniff card that came with Leather Goddesses might no longer work.

I play these games on my Palm with Frotz, a Z-code interpreter. Frotz exists for a variety of platforms, including Unix, Windows CE, GameBoy Advanced, Windows, KDE etc. Many of the interactive fiction games are in Z-code format.

...

Now do you want to tell me that this picture is all rosy? Or are you willing to open your eyes and note that there may be issues here?

No, of course there are issues here. For example, effective indentured servitude is indeed an abuse of the H-1B system. I personally can't imagine how you think American visas are "designed for international co-operation"; anyone who's spent hours in the "non-US Citizens" line at a US airport (even pre-2001) knows better, but never mind this.

What I am trying to do is cast a different light on the issues. Let's step back, for a moment, from this tricky question of who's projecting onto whom, and consider some history.

In 1870, the Irish labor union "The Secret Order of the Knights of St Crispin" went on strike in a shoe factory in North Adams, MA. The factory owner, Calvin Sampson, responded by using the railroad to bring in a contingent of 75 Chinese strikebreakers from San Francisco. This was an amazingly effective tactic. The Knights made an abortive attempt to bring the Chinese into their union, but it failed, and Sampson's tactic became a model for other East coast entrepreneurs.

The history of race relations in the US can be viewed in these terms: exploitative bosses using race as a divide-and-conquer tactic. The writings of Ronald Takaki on this subject make a good read, and he's a Berkeley local :-)

Now, to me, the fundamental problem here is not that the Chinese were prepared to work for less than the Irish, but that the Irish labor union failed to build an effective dialogue with the Chinese. Indeed, they lacked a clear ideological underpinning for such a dialogue. Presumably (and now I freely admit I may be projecting) it was quite hard for them to separate the issue of "the Chinese should have the same rights as us" with the issue of "the Chinese shouldn't be taking our jobs".

I see the same confusion in the present dialogue. To use two examples from your post: The fact that local, qualified workers exist is not a huge issue to me. The fact that the foreign workers aren't getting the same rights as the local workers (such as free movement from employer to employer) is an issue.

I'm not accusing you of hating immigrants (honest), nor am I looking through rose-colored glasses and saying no problem exists. I'm simply suggesting that we need to disentangle these two issues, and reduce the emphasis on "American jobs". Otherwise, we'll end up like the Irish shoemakers of St Crispin, unable to talk to the Chinese.

Perhaps you feel exactly the same way. If so, I apologise for the redundancy.

As for your discussion of outsourcing, I'm unable to comment on the quality of coders from Bangalore. Otherwise, it just seems to me like the same thing on a global scale. Good question: how can we build a dialogue with these workers, to create global standards and rights? Bad question: how can we stop low-skilled hacks stealing our jobs? (And no, I'm not claiming you said either one of these; they're just illustrative.)

Viewed from this perspective of workers' rights, I think the idea that H-1Bs are "bad for the economy" is a bit of a distraction, though yes, you could probably phrase it in these terms. Oh, and by the way, regarding your opinion of higher ed: sounds pretty bad down your neck of the woods. Please, encourage your kids to come to Berkeley. I for one try not to turn out "degreed idiots". HTH

There are a couple, yes. The three most important formats are Z-Code (interpreter: Frotz, among others), T.A.G. (interpreter: T.A.M., Windows and Linux) and Floyd (interpreter: Floyd, Windows and Linux). As for games, some are on the textfire.de webzine's "Grand Prix" (competition) page (that's comp02, there're also 03 and 04). Of these I'd recommed "Der Angstbaum" (for T.A.M.), a fantasy adventure that almost plays itself (what puzzles there are aren't very difficult); if you're into spaceships and such try Starrider (for Z-Code interpreters). Good luck!

Oops.. link should be http://www.cs.csubak.edu/~dgriffi/proj/frotz/ Other Infocom Interpreters

Which interpreter do you mean, the CLI, the X, or the Palm interpreter?

>CLI.

Frotz is a great CLI interpreter with lots of ports to other OSes. A very good place to start, keeps it simple, and brings back all the nostalgia of white-on-black text.

>OOPS, X.

If you're dedicated to X, try Zoom. It handles later versions of Z with graphics and sound as well.

>OOPS, PALM.

For those on the go, Frobnitz is a Z-Code machine for Palm Pilots, but I've found it has some weird display kinks. One really nice feature, though, is that you can extended-click a word on the screen and get a pop-up menu of common commands like Take, Examine, and so on, all pre-selected with the word in mind. It takes longer to explain than to learn how to use.

If you're a fan and haven't played it, or just feel like taking a little trip back:

>Go Underdogs
[Using your web browser]You see a website offering tons of cool underrated games

>Examine Games
You see a list of hundreds of IF games"

>Get HHGTG
You download one of the best IF games ever

>Play game
[using Frotz] You play for a while before feeling a presence behind you. The lights go out. You have been eaten by a grue.

Alternatively, if you have Usenet access, go take a look in the alt.binaries.emulation.misc or alt.binaries.emulation.tosec groups which have a lot of ROMs regularly posted in there.

... and don't you forget it.

Most people who have spoken up so far seem right:

GAs can be used to find sub-optimal or optimal (given enough time) solutions for NP-complete problems, Timetable (TT) being one of them.

However, I think the core benefits of using such a heuristic, in this case, might be:

1. At any point in time, you can tell the GA to stop, and you can get a feasible (but probably sub-optimal) soltuion from it,

2. GAs are, in some small ways, parallelizable.

Of couse, you're probably not looking for a whiz-bang super-duper fast utility, so (2) probably isn't useful.

Perhaps you can find some use of these:

- A presentation I did on why TT is NP-Complete,

- I spoke about a GA approach for solving the TT.

Note that the time spent by a GA in finding an optimal solution is not guaranteed to be any better than the speed of an approximation algorithm, nor even the speed of the naive approach, when solving TT (or any other NP-complete problem).

The GA approach mentioned above had been used successfully in practice, though.

Most people who have spoken up so far seem right:

GAs can be used to find sub-optimal or optimal (given enough time) solutions for NP-complete problems, Timetable (TT) being one of them.

However, I think the core benefits of using such a heuristic, in this case, might be:

1. At any point in time, you can tell the GA to stop, and you can get a feasible (but probably sub-optimal) soltuion from it,

2. GAs are, in some small ways, parallelizable.

Of couse, you're probably not looking for a whiz-bang super-duper fast utility, so (2) probably isn't useful.

Perhaps you can find some use of these:

- A presentation I did on why TT is NP-Complete,

- I spoke about a GA approach for solving the TT.

Note that the time spent by a GA in finding an optimal solution is not guaranteed to be any better than the speed of an approximation algorithm, nor even the speed of the naive approach, when solving TT (or any other NP-complete problem).

The GA approach mentioned above had been used successfully in practice, though.

Disclaimers: I help the maintainer with cross-platform issues. Also, UnixFrotz is now GNU GPL.

Do I have to point out Microsoft's track record for being the most reliable system ever? I might as well. :)